Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the December 18 Planning Commission hearing. I will call this hearing to order at 01:00PM. Miss Carmen, can we please have roll call?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I will begin with Chair Wardlow. Here. Vice Chair Boss? Present. Commissioner Deluccio? Here. And Commissioner Balkhy?

Here.

We have quorum. Thank you.

Thank you. And let's get started with preliminary matters, requests for continuances, withdrawals, postponements, or ex agenda items. Ms. Arsenaga, do we have any?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. We do not.

All right. Do we have any announcements or appeals?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. We do have one announcement for your commission. It's an update on the State Street Master Plan. There was inquiry by your commission at a past hearing asking for kind of the status of that. I wanted to report to you that that is wrapping up in its draft form, but it will be coming to your commission in this early spring, hopefully before May. But it would be a joint hearing with yourselves and the HLC. So please be on the lookout for future kind of joint hearing dates. Scheduling will be of importance. Also to the public to look out for that joint hearing coming up. That will be the opportunity that the commission can see the draft and weigh in and provide some feedback.

So, we really do appreciate your participation in that. And then, if you have any other questions, Tess Harris continues to be the lead on that. So, please do contact her directly, and we'll be bringing that to you soon.

Thank you. We will now move on oh, Commissioner Balkhy would like to I

just got a question. Last time, we talked, and I talked with you and Tess, about creating a subcommittee so we don't get the same just dropped on the commission and Correct. The HLC, and not have at least some ability to help the process. So, what's the status of that? Or is that something we're going to discuss at another date? What's the

So, the status of so, the HLC's subcommittee is specific to the interim improvements, not necessarily the long term plan. And at this time, we're not doing additional subcommittees. If your commission if any of you have feedback that you want to kind of coordinate or understand more of the status, it would be working with TESS directly. And so and she is here now. So, let me turn that over to her.

I don't want to belabor this, but it is on the agenda. Is is the city council going to have a are they forming a subcommittee?

I'll allow miss Harris

to speak Chair and commissioner. So, in terms of a subcommittee for the State Street master plan, is that what you're

Yes.

You're asking?

Was asking if the city council was gonna form their own little subcommittee.

At the moment, there is not a separate subcommittee that has been formed by city council. There are three council members that are on the State Street Advisory Committee. That committee, while it is really not meeting at the moment, is going to meet one more time at the draft master plan completion. And so those three council members would be council members that if a committee was gonna be formed, likely those three members would be because they have already been working with staff on the project. But at this time, one hasn't been created.

Thank you. We will now move on to the review consideration action and on the following draft Planning Commission minutes. 12/04/2025 planning commission minutes. Are there any planning commissioner comments on the minutes? Nope. Do we have any public speakers for the minutes?

We do not.

Great. If not, can I get a motion to approve the minutes?

Female Move approval of

December 4.

I'll second that.

Female We have roll call.

Female Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I'll begin with Commissioner Balkhy. Yes. Female Commissioner DeLucia.

Yes.

Female Vice Chair Boss. Yes. And Chair Wardlow. Yes. Female Motion passes. Thank you.

Female Thank you. That takes us to item D, comments from members of the public pertaining to items that are not on today's agenda. And due to time constraints, today, all public comment will be limited to two minutes. So, Ms. Carmen, do we have anyone in person or remote that would like to provide public comment on items not on today's agenda?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. At this time, I don't have any speaker slips for public comment for items not on this agenda. If anyone would like to speak under general, you can approach the podium at this time. But I'm not seeing any movement, I would like to remind, the audience that if you are wishing to speak under an item on today's agenda, that you fill out a speaker slip at the back of the room. It's on a pink clipboard, and you'll bring that up to me.

And specifically regarding the two appeals, since there are two items, there's three a and three b, if you would list which one you would like to speak under, so that way I know when to call your name. But I will move on from there to virtual participation. If anyone online would like to speak under general, you can raise your hand at this time. But I'm not seeing any raised hands, and we did not receive any written correspondence under general, so I'll give it back to you.

All right. Great. We will now move on to item 3A, an appeal item for 3,139 Seacliff, appeal of the staff hearing officer decision on a coastal development permit. We have Carly Earnest, associate planner with us today to provide a staff presentation. Ms. Earnest, I'll let you get situated, and then the floor will be yours.

Okay. Good afternoon, commissioners. Thank you, chair Wardlow. My name is Carly Earnest, associate planner. I'll be presenting the appeal today of the project at 3139 Seacliff.

I also have with me Thomas Rasek with Santa Barbara County Environmental Health Services site mitigation unit and David Harris with Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District who I'll defer to later on in this presentation. Also, I have Erin Markey, the city's creeks division manager, and Julia Pujo, our city's environmental analyst right behind me who are available for questions. I also would like to acknowledge the memo that was distributed yesterday to the commissioners as well as posted online. This was just to clarify for the record that environmental health services here has recently reviewed the proposed remedial action plan that this project would be implementing to confirm it complies with the current regulations and mister Rayzak can speak more to that as well. Getting into the project.

The purpose of this hearing is to hear the appeal of Gilberry of the staff hearing officer's approval of a coastal development permit and CEQA determination made on 10/15/2025 for the project at 3139 Seacliff. The project site is an approximately three acre lot in the Campanile neighborhood of the city of Santa Barbara and in the nonappealable jurisdiction of the city's coastal zone. It is the property highlighted in blue on this vicinity map at the intersection of Braemar Drive and Seacliff. The appellant, mister Berry, lives across the street at 3130 Braemar Drive, which is highlighted in yellow on the vicinity map. The project site is zoned a one s d three.

This zone district is restricted to low residential densities, and the subject lot and surrounding lots are primarily developed with the single unit residential developments. For some site photos, here's an aerial photo of the project site from 2007. The approximate lot lines are shown in white, and this is from when the site was occupied by Rancho Encino Orchid Greenhouse Operations, which operated with a conditional use permit granted by the Planning Commission for about fifty years. That was from about 1957 to 2007. Then here's a photo from 2007 showing that when the nursery operation ceased, the greenhouse and associated shed structures were demolished.

And you can see in the bottom left southwest corner there is the existing single family residence that remains in the remainder of the lot being vacant. Here are current aerial photos of the project site. They're, again, in the right hand or southwest corner is the existing residence, and you can also see that vegetation has become established since the nursery operations have ceased. For a recap of the project, the project proposes soil remediation by excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil that was a result of agricultural chemicals used by the former nursery. The associated grading tree and vegetation removal is limited to what is necessary to complete the remediation.

The goal of this remedial action is to reduce contamination to levels that are acceptable for residential land use. Following the remediation, the property owners plan to subdivide the property into three lots and construct residential developments. This plan here is demonstrating the remedial action excavations that are circled in green, those shaded areas there. And the depths of these excavations range from 12 to 36 inches and results in excavation and exportation of 2,225 cubic yards of contaminated soil, which would be exported to appropriate permitted landfills. The red x's on this plan here are showing the 55 trees to be removed, 54 of which are nonnative eucalyptus trees and one nonnative coke pine coke pine, excuse me, that require removal to complete the remediation.

The excavations would be backfilled with clean soil from the site with grading to be balanced on-site. The project proposes 55 replacement trees as well as tree protection measures to protect the trees to remain per the arborist recommendations. And here is the landscape plan showing those replacement trees. All of the disturbed areas would be hydroseeded with a native erosion control mix following completion of grading activities. And there are no changes to the existing residents proposed. I'd now like to turn it over to mister Rezek to give an introduction in EHS's role of reviewing the project.

Morning, commissioners and chair. My name is Tom Razak. I am the professional geologist and certified hydrogeologist with the Santa Barbara County site mitigation unit. We provide regulatory oversight for environmental cleanups of soil, soil vapor and groundwater within the Santa Barbara County area. My personal experience is I've been doing environmental work since 1988, and I've been with the county for since 1999.

This project came to us about fifteen years ago when they wanted to redevelop it at that time. We noticed when city planning gave us documents regarding this and asked if we had any input on it, we noted that there was the former agricultural use of it being the orchid farm. We knew from personal experience and other sites that this could potentially have chlorinated pesticides, which are now banned, but they could have been used since 1950s through 1970s. And they are persistent within the environment. So we had them do some testing.

We did find that there was, in fact, levels of the chlorinated pesticides that would require remediation and cleanup, including some that was actually would classify as hazardous waste if it was removed from the site, which would require special handling on that. We had them do additional testing. They came up with a corrective action plan, and that was not implemented due to appeals from the neighboring people. In this subsequent time, some of the cleanup levels have changed. And we looked at the data on that, basically took a look at that, said that yes, you do, due to these new levels, we're a little bit more stringent.

You do need to do some extra excavation and assessment. That was done about five, six years ago. A new corrective action plan was in place, and we have been waiting for that to be implemented as it goes through the appeals process. In that subsequent time from then, the clinicals have changed again. And we have looked at those, which is why you got a package from Carly, which did have kind of our document I believe it had our documentation showing that we had, in fact, reviewed it and looked at the current cleaning cleanup levels and had stated that based on the data that we had, that very little change would actually be required.

In fact, it actually went down in a few places. But that the corrective action plan was still valid.

Thank you, Mr. Rasek. And Mr. Harris, if you could please introduce yourself.

Thanks, Carly. As Carly mentioned, my name is David Harris, and I'm the manager of the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District's engineering division. Just a little bit of background on our agency. The APCD is a local government agency with primary responsibility for controlling air pollution from stationary sources. Our jurisdiction covers all of Santa Barbara County, including projects within the county's eight incorporated cities.

The APC adopts rules in accordance with state and federal laws, and we issue permits to ensure compliance with these rules. Our agency's role for contaminant soil cleanup projects is to issue permits with rigorous requirements and conditions to ensure the projects are completed in a manner that is safe for all neighboring people and the environment. And while our agency does not prescribe the method of treatment for contaminated soil, we do believe that in all cases, is better to remediate the soil than to leave the contamination in place. For cleanup projects proposing the excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil, such as the project that's under appeal today, our permit conditions include operational limitations, vapor and dust suppression requirements, extensive dust and volatile organic compound monitoring program for the duration of the project, and detailed recordkeeping and reporting requirements to ensure all permit conditions are adhered to. Thanks.

Thank you, mister Harrison. They both will be available for questions throughout this hearing. The required discretionary applications for the project include a coastal development permit to allow the proposed development in the nonappealable jurisdiction of the city's coastal zone in a secret determination that the project is exempt from further environmental review. On 10/15/2025, the staff hearing officer made the necessary findings to approve the project, including approving the CDP and affirming that the project is categorically exempt under section fifteen three thirty of the CEQA guidelines. There were added conditions that addressed, one, construction activities to occur during dry weather only.

Two, the removal of hazardous waste soils happened first and to notify the neighborhood. Three, that the location of the construction staging area be restudied. And four, increasing the air monitoring frequency. And these were largely, as a result of the discussion that was held in in response to public comment. Going into the appeal issues, the staff report in this presentation will focus on the two main appeal points in mister Berry's appeal letter.

The first one is regarding the coastal development permit. The appellant asserts that the staff hearing officer's decision to approve the CDP was faulty because the decision made is not warranted by evidence, and there was insufficient evidence to justify the decision made. The appeal letter claims that the project is inconsistent with coastal act and city coastal land use policies and further asserts that the site is within the appeal jurisdiction of the coastal zone on the basis that it is within 100 feet of a stream. In response to appeal issue number one, to approve a coastal development permit, the decision maker must find that the project is consistent with the policies of the California Coastal Act and city's local coastal plan. Staff reviewed the project for consistency with applicable policies and found it consistent with policies that address biological resources, water quality, visual and scenic resources, and coastal hazards and safety.

When analyzing a project for policy consistency, staff will determine which policies are applicable to the project and then will review or may request technical studies and plans to be prepared to demonstrate how the project is consistent. For this project, those studies and plans included a biological resources assessment, an arborist report in tree replacement plan, erosion and sediment control plan, and remedial action plan that were all prepared by qualified consultants, and that staff used to verify the project was consistent with the applicable coastal policies. The full policy consist consistency analysis is provided in the staff hearing officer staff report and planning commission staff report. The appellant also asserts that the project site is located within the appeal jurisdiction of the coastal zone due to its proximity to a stream. The appeal jurisdiction is mapped and certified by the California Coastal Commission with the boundary shown on this map in blue.

It indicates areas within 100 feet of any wetland, estuary, or stream in areas that include land between the ocean and 1st Public Road. And this means that a coastal development permit in this area may be appealed to the coast California Coastal Commission. And here's just a closer up view of that map showing the property located outside of the appeal jurisdiction. The project site is not located within 100 feet of any stream that meets the definition used to determine the appeal jurisdiction boundaries. Therefore, the property is located in the nonappealable jurisdiction of the city's coastal zone.

This was also verified with California Coastal Commission staff. The second appeal issue is that the appellant asserts that the project does not meet the requirements of the categorical exemption under section fifteen three thirty of the CEQA guidelines. Because the appellant estimates the project cost to exceed the $1,000,000 threshold and asserts that the site is a hazardous waste site. The appellant also asserts that an environmental impact report must be prepared if the project has potential to result in significant impacts. To address the appeal issue stating that an EIR is required, staff would like to clarify the CEQA process.

Pursuant to the CEQA guidelines, once a lead agency determines that a project is subject to CEQA, the guidelines direct the lead agency to determine whether the project is exempt from CEQA. The city of Santa Barbara is the lead agency and implements the environmental review process pursuant to the CEQA guidelines, CEQA statute and guidelines. The project is subject to CEQA because the action causes a change to the physical environment and requires a discretionary action by a public agency. Staff determined that it met the requirements of a categorical exemption, and therefore, no initial study or further CEQA document preparation is required. The appellant's claim that an initial study in EIR must be prepared is inconsistent with the requirements of the CEQA statute.

The section fifteen three thirty exemption covers projects that consist of minor cleanup actions including the removal of contaminated soil as this project proposes. Staff determine the project is exempt from further environmental review under this section of the guidelines because the project is consistent with the requirements of the exemption. To overview the criteria, this includes that the project would prevent, minimize, stabilize, mitigate, or eliminate the release or threat of release of hazardous waste by and the project would do this by removing and the off-site disposal of contaminated soil. The project also consists of small or medium removal actions because it includes a limited area of disturbance, shallow excavation depths, and would be completed within a time frame of approximately six weeks. The project cost less than $1,000,000, which was verified by reviewing a preliminary cost estimate by Campbell Geo, the project's geologist, that estimated project cost at $538,000.

It should also be noted that the CEQA guidelines do not specify a methodology for calculating project cost. So the preliminary cost estimate demonstrates that the project is within the intended range for projects qualifying for an exemption under section fifteen three thirty. The project does not include the use of hazardous waste incinerators or thermal treatment units or the relocation of residences or businesses. The project would not result in release of volatile organic compounds exceeding thresholds established by the APCD, and the project would comply with the conditions of the permit to operate issued by APCD for dust control, air quality monitoring, and handling of contaminated materials as well as the remedial action plan by environmental health services. The project is consistent with applicable state and local environmental permitting requirements by implementing the remedial action plan approved by environmental health services and complying with the conditions of the permit to operate by APCD.

Next, staff further confirmed that the exemption is not precluded by the exceptions set forth in section fifteen three hundred point two of the CEQA guidelines. These exceptions include the location criteria, which is not applicable to these class 30 or section fifteen three thirty exemptions. The project would not have a cumulative impact because the project there are no similar projects nearby to create a cumulative impact. There would be no significant project specific effects that would result due to unusual circumstances because the project consists of standard cleanup and remediation activities specified within the section fifteen three thirty exemption and would adhere to the remedial action plan. The project does not have the potential to result in damage to scenic highways because there's no state scenic highways near the project site.

Although the project contains contaminated soil, it is not considered a hazardous waste site that is also known as the Cortezi list. The project does not have the potential to result in substantial adverse change to historical resources because there are no structures on the city's historic resource inventory or designated historic resources near the project site. Now for staff's recommendation. Because the required findings for the CDP can be made and the project is consistent with the requirements of the categorical exemption and is not precluded by one of the exceptions, staff recommends that the planning commission deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the staff hearing officer to approve the coastal development permit and affirm the sequel determination making the findings on page 12 of your packet and subject to the conditions of approval and the staff hearing officer resolution attached as exhibit c to your staff report. In conclusion, the Planning Commission's decision today can be appealed to city council and appeals to the Planning Commission of staff hearing office officer decisions are conducted de novo, meaning that any new evidence or arguments presented today may be considered in your decision.

That concludes our presentation, and we're available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I believe we will now hear from the staff hearing officer, Tess Harris.

Hi, again, chair and commissioners. My name is Tess Harris. I'm the staff hearing officer for the city of Santa Barbara. I wanted to just sort of walk through briefly what occurred at the staff hearing officer meeting. It was a lengthy, about hour and a half, two hour meeting with many of the members of the public behind me today, along with the applicant and the appellant.

I think one of the the big things that I I hope was stressed in that meeting is that this is a neighborhood, and all of the people obviously care very deeply about how their neighborhood operates in the future and the safety for everybody, as well as a deep desire to transition a property that currently is not being utilized for, residential use in a residential zone into a space that can be habitable in the future. And that requires the soil remediation that you see before you today. With that, you know, we had a number of members of the public speak. We had a number of public comments that came before me as the staff hearing officer, and I had members from APCD and environmental health there to respond to questions along with with geology questions as well. The four conditions of approval that you see in the Planning Commission staff report that are highlighted were conditions that really came out of that staff hearing officer decision or meeting.

So, know, one was ensuring that construction activities are occurring within dry weather periods and are halted during inclement weather so as to avoid any concern around moving moving hazardous material or contaminated soil, off-site during a weather period. Another was, to make sure that the that the soil that is most contaminated is removed first and to notify all of the neighbors that that is occurring in that specified time frame so that is removed off the site as quickly as possible. And then the rest of the soil remediation work can continue after that. Another condition that was added during that meeting was to look at the construction staging area. I had heard from a member of the public a concern there after visiting the site, and really just sort of understanding the narrow roads and the closeness on some portions of property to try to make sure that that staging wasn't going to conflict with the residential uses that are immediately adjacent.

And then the last but certainly not least was a requirement for fifteen minute review checks, which is well beyond what the Air Pollution Control District requires. And that also came out directly from a member of a public comment that I heard that day around concerns on the checks. And so the applicant was amenable to having additional checks on-site, and air the air pollution control district also was amenable to that. You know, and I just wanna add that I I believe I asked about every question I could. I mean, I took this project really I live in the community as well.

I would be just as concerned as many of the of the members of the public are. And at the same time, there are three families that are have purchased a property and are looking to build, in the future, looking to build on that property. And the zoning allows for residential use. If you've gone out to the site and seen the site, it's currently red tagged with a building that is inhabitable and then is really a space that in many ways could be improved substantially for the community as a whole. And from all of the comments that I received from the applicant, from the appellant, a member of the public, and the staff hearing officer meeting, as well as all of the other members of the public, with the additional conditions, with the expert review by environment health and air pollution control district.

They're meeting all of the state requirements. They're meeting all of the local requirements. I really felt that this project, in my purview, could could be approved. And so if you have any questions, I'm happy to talk through that process a little bit further with you today.

Thank you very much, Ms. Harris. Really appreciate your update and all of your work on this. So now we will hear from the appellant. If you would come up and please state your full name and relationship to the project for the record. You will have twenty minutes to present. Miss Carmen, would you please start the timer, and then we will let you know if you have any time remaining that you can use during rebuttals. Thank you. Alright.

My name is Gil Barry. I have had an architectural firm here for fifty years with fifty years experience and expertise in grading. They shut down this orchid nursery twenty years ago, and the city told them they had to do extensive soil testing, which they did in 2007. When this project started eighteen years ago, I started research in Dieldrin. In the last eighteen years, I've spent six hundred hours of research on Deldrin and this project.

I have a file accumulated on this project of 1,000 pages. I also spent two hundred hours preparing a draft EIR that provides you proof that this project creates significant adverse environmental health impacts to neighbors. At each public hearing, I hear the applicant and their team make a statement that only a tiny quantity of the site is hazardous waste. I disagree with this because the Federal Environmental Protection Agency defines hazardous waste as any waste that causes cancer in humans. This entire site has hazardous waste that can cause cancer to humans, not just a tiny amount of it.

Now, I'll admit, only a third of the site has to be removed. So that third of the site, being acre, would be the area of concern. The extensive soil testing proves that this soil contains DDT, deodorin, chloridine, mercury, and millithione in quantities way above the maximum safe limit per the federal environmental protection agency. Dieldrin was used at this nursery for twenty five years. The environmental protection agency currently sets the maximum safe level of deodorant in the soil at point zero three four milligrams per kilogram.

That's a very tiny amount. The elderly respond in a quantity of 200% to 1200% higher than the Environmental Protection Agency's safe limit in about a third of the site. That's why the soil in a third of the site has to be removed because it causes cancer in humans. About half of the test in the area to be removed shows deodorant level of more than one milligram per kilogram of soil. Now this is important.

Soil with over 1,000,000 milligram per kilogram of deodorant is classified by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency as class one hazardous waste. Class one hazardous waste has to go to a class one landfill like Kettleman Hills and Fresno. It's like the worst of the worst. The reason this project couldn't get approval during eighteen years in the pipeline is due to the health impact to the neighbors by cancer causing dust raised into the air by grating, blown by wind where neighbors will breathe it twenty four seven for two months. The Elder is by far the most hazardous cancer causing toxic pesticide can't even talk.

It's the most hazardous, cancer causing toxic pesticide ever invented. It's worse than DDT. It's actually equal to sarin gas. Scientists gave small quantities to rats and cats. They soon died with cancer and destroyed livers.

Scientists gave small quantities to six fifteen hundred pound cows. They all died with convulsions in a month. The autopsy showed they had cancer, and their livers were completely destroyed. How Gildern works is its particles are so fine, they penetrate any cell membrane it touches, then it transforms that cell into cancer. Delderon gets into one's bodies three ways, by breathing dust in the air containing delderon, by skin contact, or by the food chain.

Scientists designated deodorant to what they call I mean, designated. The scientists that designed deodorant did it in a way that they call persistent. They designed it so that it stays active in soil for one hundred years. They the scientists designed it to go into the soil where it then gets into the plants it's trying to protect. When an insect eats the plant, even months after the dilrin is applied, they die instantly.

Dilrin stays in one's body for life where it builds up in your fat cells. Most all cropland in America still has active dilderant in it. Therefore, much of the food you eat has a dilderant in it, even though it's been outlawed, like, thirty years ago. When you get deodorant in your body by breathing, skin contact, or eating foods, it gets in your bloodstream and gets into every organ of your body. Gildren causes the following diseases liver damage, kidney damage, respiratory illness, damage to the central nervous system, damage to the reproductive system, birth defects and miscarriages, Parkinson's

I

can't even talk. Parkinson's, dementia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, damage to the immune system. It causes the body to destroy its own blood cells. It causes leukemia. And last but not least, it causes liver cancer, kidney cancer, and breast cancer.

In 2019, when the previous applicant saw that they were having trouble getting approval because I was raising a health issue to the neighbors, the applicants, the previous applicants, made me an offer. If I would stop bringing up the cancer health issues of neighbors, they would send me, my wife, Mary, and our son, Cody, on an all expense paid $30,000 vacation to a beachfront condo in Hawaii for the two months of toxigrating so we wouldn't get cancer. I turned him down because I'm not gonna go sit on a beach while my neighbors are. An important fact to realize, the applicants have no experts on their team that know exactly how much cancer causing dust is gonna be raised into the air and breathed by the neighbors twenty four seven for two months. Also note that not one of the applicants or the applicant's team or the city staff or any of the county staff is gonna tell you that this project will not give neighbors cancer.

They're not gonna say that. Why? Because this project is likely going to give neighbors and their children cancer. After the county environmental health gave its approval in 2019, six years ago, I called Paul, the director, the person then in charge. He's now gone. I asked Paul if they had even looked at the health impact to neighbors before they gave it the permit. Paul told me, no, Gil. They just assumed the county air pollution control district had looked into that. He also said to me, he said, Gil, everybody has one chance in three of getting cancer in their life. So what's the big deal?

So I called Charlotte, the person in charge of the county air produce I mean, the person in charge of this project for the county air pollution control district, highly respected person in in this toxic waste. And I asked Charlotte if the Air Pollution Control District had looked at the health impacts from the toxic dust raised by grading before they gave it their permit. Charlotte told me, no. We just assume the county environmental health department did that. Then Charlotte said, but we did add a condition of approval that the developer has to provide workers with a map with directions to the cottage hospital in case they get sick from breathing the toxic dust.

That's not standard. Then I called city staff. This was 2019. You know, city staff changed. They're all gone now. I called city staff and asked if they had looked at the health impacted neighbors from this toxic dust raid by grading. And she told me, no. We just assumed the county did that. The city, county, and applicant will try to convince you that monitoring the dust level will somehow keep the level of cancer causing toxic dust below the level that'll give neighbors cancer. The fatal flaw in this argument is that's impossible to achieve.

Words on a permit can't stop cancer causing dust from rising, being blown by the wind, where we neighbors will breathe it and get cancer. The quantity of grading is massive. The previous developer told me it's 2,500 yards and 250 dump trucks. I calculated the total round trip miles driven by the dump trucks at 42,900 miles. The diameter of the Earth is 24,901 miles.

Therefore, these dump trucks are gonna fuel 1.72 trips around the world. That's a whole lot of toxic dust and a whole lot of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact all by itself. My fifty year career as an architect involved over 100 grading projects. I'm providing you expert testimony that it's absolutely impossible to excavate dirt without causing a lot of dust to rise in the air. Each time the excavator bucket scoops into dry soil then turns and dumps it on the ground, Large plume of visible toxic dust rises, gets into the air, and blown to where we neighbors will breathe it.

Now this is important. Scientists have proven that dust raised into the air stays in the air for thirty days and then is blown by wind for hundreds of miles. This is gonna be blown all over the city. Since this dust raised in the air remains in the air, we neighbors are gonna breathe it twenty four seven, not just eight to five. It's gonna be in air twenty four seven. And the previous owner told me this project is two months, not six weeks. And if they do proper watering, it would take two months. A dust monitor now this is also important. A dust monitor can only read the dust level. A dust monitor can't stop the plume of toxic dust from rising in the air.

Every bucket of the dirt is dumped by the excavator on the ground. You know, the the monitor can't stop that. And, also, I did a test in my own house. I did four hours of watering on dry ground. Then I went and dug. It only only got damp one inch deep. Four hours of watering only went down one inch deep. Now these buckets go down two feet deep when they dig. Okay. I'm almost done now.

Let's look at the environmental. I also have extensive experience dealing with CEQA and environmental impacts as an architect of fifty years. I've done 440 projects in Santa Barbara. I've actually written an ER for the city forty years ago. The sole I can tell you the sole purpose of CEQA law is to provide you decision makers with information about the project's impacts to the environment.

Remember, they're providing you information. If no environmental review is required by CEQA, that does not mean you have to ignore the environmental impacts of the project, or you can't take significant adverse environmental health impacts or I mean, if there's no EIR, that doesn't mean that you can't take these significant adverse environmental impacts into account. You can. You legally can and should, and you can properly deny a project because of the environmental impacts. Staff is telling you that they deem this project a Zempra SEQA environmental review because the applicant submitted a so called cost estimate stating the cost was less than a million dollars.

They shared this cost estimate with me. I have extensive expertise. I prepared over 400 professional cost estimates for a construction project in my career. What I saw was no cost estimate at all, but just a letter where only a total estimate was given with no supporting calculations at all to justify such a questionable low number around $600,000. The previous applicant told me ten years ago that he had a bid for the grading this grading, this job, same quantity, $750,000 ten years ago.

I can tell you as an expert, construction cost here has doubled in the last ten years due to the high inflation, which alone would bring the cost of this gradient to around 1 and a half million dollars today. Okay. Now consider this. The new city police department is gonna spend $4,700,000 to remove 10,000 yards of toxic dirt that they discovered at the new police site. This project is 25% the size of the police project grading.

Therefore, this project's cost for the grading would be at least 25% of the 4,700,000.0 that the city's gonna spend for the police project, and that comes out to $1,175,000. And the police project has no tree removal contact, and it doesn't and it doesn't have the permits and the fees like this project does. So this project would be more than that. Now I actually did, like, six page a couple months ago. I did a six page professional and detailed cost estimate.

I turned it into staff for this project, and it came to $1,766,600. It's a fact that the total cost of this project will most likely be somewhere around 1 and a half million dollars, well over $1,000,000. Therefore, this project does not meet the requirement that you have to give it that you would have to find that it costs less than $1,000,000 in order to give it an exemption because it's clearly cost over $1,000,000. Lastly, last page, let's look at the coastal permit. The information contained in the environmental report I submitted is like 90 pages.

I spent a whole year on it, you know, 200 research. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt this project does not comply with our local coastal plan. I read our complete local coastal plan. It's something like a couple 100 pages. The staff report wrongly says that this project stormwater management silt fence will prevent the cancer causing contaminated water runoff from getting into the adjacent drainage creek, which flows directly into the environmentally sensitive lagoon and beach just a block away, where then it's gonna kill endangered and protected rare plants, animals, birds, fish, and it can even give cancer to children to play in that lagoon.

I'm almost done here. As an architect with fifty years extensive experience in stormwater control, I've personally witnessed dozens of projects where water runs right through waddles and stilt fences and right into the street. I've seen mud go right past these stilt fences and right into the street. In our own street, Braemar, last year, a project on the corner of Yankee Farm and Braemar, it took six men two days to clean up the mud that flowed in the street right past the silt fences. Silt fences and waddles, they don't stop this stuff.

They go right through it. They're only designed to stop mudflow, not water. If you wanna stop water, I can tell you you need to have either a bioswale or a pond or underground tank, and this project does not have that. Last thing, last point, a major goal of our coastal program, section three zero two four zero a, says, and I quote, encourage, protect, and preserve community farms. It's right in the coastal plan.

I mean, well, okay, program. There is a three acre staff didn't even mention this to you. There's a three acre working organic farm operated by the bucket brigade in the coastal zone immediately adjacent to this project right next door to me. If they show the map, you can see it. It's three acres.

It's a working organic farm. They raise organic produce on clean dirt, and it's immediately adjacent to this project, that organic farm soil is gonna be contaminated by the toxic cancer causing dust that's gonna raise up in the air, blow over, and drop on the soil. It's gonna drop on their organic crops for two months. And that alone is gonna be a million dollar lawsuit against the city. Okay. Any time left for rebuttal? Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments and presentation. We will now hear from the applicant.

There's no clapping in the audience.

We will now hear from the applicant. Please come up and state your full name and relationship to the project for the record, and you also will have twenty minutes to present. If you would like to save some of your time for rebuttals later on, we can do that as well. Miss Carmen, please start the timer when you're ready.

Okay. Chair Wardlow, commissioners, nice to see you this afternoon. I'm Beth Collins from Brownstein. I'm a land use attorney and we're representing the applicants. The applicants are actually here today. You heard Tess Harris refer to it. There are three families. They're here in the audience, and they just want to subdivide and build houses on these three acres of property. I'm not going to ask them to stand up. Here's the team.

These are the families that are hoping to live on this property, and are really hoping that you will follow staff recommendation today. A couple of them have to leave. They have appointments, so if you see them ducking out, it's to deal with kid stuff. So, this is an unusual situation. We have dueling appeals.

They relate to city planning department approvals that are required to implement a remedial action plan, or a WRAP. This WRAP is designed and regulated through expert agencies. We have county APCD you heard from, county EHS you heard from, and the city. These expert agencies analyzed and approved the WRAP, and we're here because to implement it, we need to remove or move around some soil and remove some, and we need to remove some trees. And to do that in the city of Santa Barbara in the coastal zone, you need a coastal development permit and a grading approval from SFDB.

So that's why we're here, darkening your door on these two appeals. So, next slide here. This is the project the project team. We have RRM, with the planner and, civil engineering, landscape architect. We have Steve Campbell here, who's in the audience. He's the geologist and hydrogeologist. I'm the land use attorney. Sarah Bronstadt, my colleague, is a land use planner. We also have a surveyor. We had an arborist. We had a biologist. It's a significant group of experts. So let's go to the next page. You heard a little bit about this neighborhood. I call it the Yankee Farm neighborhood.

It's just above Henry's Beach. I used to actually live there. That's actually where I first met the appellant Gill. And it's fantastic neighborhood, kind of a funky, funky farming neighborhood, as you'll hear and if you know about it. So next slide. What's our goal? Safe removal of contaminated soil. Really, want the same thing here, the appellant, the neighbors, everybody, the city even. So the question is is who to listen to and how to do it. The appellant has provided a lot of criticisms of the RAP and the city's analysis, including its environmental analysis.

Those criticisms are not supported by the city's experts. They're not supported by the county's experts. In fact, your experts are really, really used to coordinating with the county, EHS and APCD. They actually do this regularly on properties and parcels all over the city. There are contaminated parcels, unfortunately, whether it's underground storage tank, former agricultural properties, which, by the way, there are a number in this Yankee Farm neighborhood and other places around the city.

All of those times, they work and coordinate closely. They've done that in this case. They've analyzed this project. They've conditioned this project. They're now recommending that this PC allow the project to move forward as conditioned. Next step. We're hoping that you agree with staff recommendation and trust the expert agencies that have jurisdiction over this property, approve the project, and affirm the city's use of the CEQA exemption. And to connect those dots, I'll give a little bit more information and background. And you've heard some reference to it here, but it's a long history. The soil testing first revealed trace amounts of these agrochemicals back in 2007.

There were many soil tests over time. There was a big process where you actually even have had a prior approved wrap. Then we had some changes to county health and safety and regional water quality control board standards that became more stringent. We had updated to the RAP. So, we can go to the next slide. Updates to the RAP. There's other analysis by the city, including a CEQA notice of exemption back in 2019. There were appeals, a variety of it just never happened. The cleanup never happened, in part because the project suffered appeals similar to the ones you're standing here. So, question is, are we going to be here again in ten years and not have cleaned up the site?

That's one of the things that we're grappling with today. So, our families bought the property here in June 2024. They're not developers. They didn't really understand all of what they were going to be into, frankly. It's been a big process.

They've had to go through city approvals. They've had to go through, you know, the RAP getting updated, approvals to get the gradings, tree advisory committee. I mean, it's a process to get something approved like this in the city of Santa Barbara. And so, now, here we are before you. We've had a number of experts, as I said, who submitted evidence to the city that supports the city's analysis.

Then the city these are some of the experts, both of the city and then the other agencies that have looked at it. We have Thomas Rezic and also David Harris here from APCD. They can answer your questions as well. And you've already heard from Tess Harris. I think we also have from the city environmental analysis and other experts.

So, we're here to answer your questions. Next page. So, although Gil is a lovely human, he is not an expert in remediating sites in Santa Barbara like this. And, he may have spent a lot of time studying it. That's fair and allowed.

I know he, at his heart, really believes that that's kind of the worst part about this whole thing, is that he's very worried, and he's got some of his neighbors worried, and that is part the here. He nonetheless suggests that you all ignore your experts and instead listen to him. And frankly, I just there's not any evidence to support you all doing that. He isn't an expert in contamination, and he is an architect, but he's not an expert in contamination and soils remediation, like the people you have here at this table, or the people in the audience, like Steve Campbell. So, next slide.

There is criticism, also, of the use of a CEQA exemption and kind of a misunderstanding. A lot of people think CEQA exemption means CEQA wasn't even done. That is not the case. You have to do CEQA analysis environmental analysis to prove that you can qualify for the exemption. And there is a CEQA exemption. It was established by the legislature for small remediation projects, so they wouldn't all have to not every project has to do an EIR. That's just that's the way CEQA was designed. You some qualify, and if you qualify for an exemption, if there's substantial evidence in the record to support that, then you get to rely on an exemption. And this one applies. One of the factors to consider is that the project cost.

We have put in an estimate that the cost is significantly less than 1,000,000. I think it's less than $550,000 Next slide. The appellant suggests that, in fact, it's far more. And he's done his own estimate. But that's not the test. The test is, have we, our expert, put forward an estimate to show the city staff it's less than 1,000,000? And it is. And here, I've also heard the appellant pointing to the police project. First of all, we have no idea, like there could be huge differences between the police project and this one, but I will tell you one of them is police project has to pay prevailing wage. Right?

That generally even increases costs by 30%. We do not have to pay prevailing wages to private individuals trying to clean up contamination on their own site. So, there is substantial evidence to support that this project is less than $1,000,000 in the cleanup. The preliminary draft EIR, again, with respect, the lead agency is the city. The city would draft any EIR, if that was appropriate.

But first, the city staff looked to consider whether or not an EIR was appropriate, and concluded it wasn't. Know, neighbor disputes are always horrible, so it's not night. It's very unfortunate we're here. My clients did work really hard in good faith with the appellant, and in fact, have agreed to some measures that are above and beyond in an attempt to avoid this appeal. So, next slide explains some of them.

And you heard some from Ms. Harris, as well. They agreed to double the number of air quality monitoring checks each day. So, it's not every thirty minutes, which is all that's required by experts. They're doing twice as much every fifteen minutes.

They also agreed to reduce the dust action level by half when monitoring removal of the most contaminated soil. They agreed to inform neighbors seven days before the removal. They also agreed to stop construction activities, that it will only happen in dry weather, not forty eight hours before rain or winter storms. So, they have gone above and beyond. They did that in an effort to settle this, but nonetheless, when that didn't happen, they in good faith agreed and kept, their word that they would do these things.

They built it into the project description. It's not something that can be a condition of approval because there's no support by experts to do these things, but they went above and beyond and built it into their project description. So it is something that's enforceable by the city, should you approve this project. So, we couldn't agree to all the measures. One of the requester's measures, for example, is to have neighbors have access to the site during construction to be able to look at the dust monitors that, you know, you just heard, it's just not allowed.

We have OSHA problems from that. You can't have neighbors coming on an active construction site. And as you heard, there is some contaminated soil here. We need to be careful during that time and during the cleanup. And it's just not appropriate to have neighbors coming around checking on APCD and EHS.

They're the ones who do the site inspections. The qualified professionals are the ones that conduct the monitoring and the data collection and the reporting. So, with that, I ask that you please follow staff recommendation, follow your experts, uphold the SHO's approval of the CDP, and affirm the CEQA exemption, and allow this wrap finally to proceed and this neighborhood finally to transition from that kind of agricultural past into a residential future. And I'll save the rest of the time for rebuttal.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Ms. Carmen, would you please let the applicant know how much time they have remaining?

Ms. Yes. The applicant has seven minutes and thirty seconds remaining, and the appellant has one minute and forty two seconds remaining.

Great. We can utilize that time later on. So, takes us to public comment. So, Ms. Carran, do we have anyone in person or remote that would like to give public comment? Given, you know, the number folks in the meeting today, we would like to ask the public to limit their public comments to two minutes maximum. And we appreciate everyone's time.

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. Yes, we do have some speaker slips for in person public comment. Before I call up the first speaker, I just want to let the audience know, I know that we did run out of speaker slips, but, about 70 more have been brought. So, if anyone did not get to fill out a speaker slip and needs to, they're at the back of the room at this time. And again, I'll remind you, please put the item number that you would like to speak on. So, you would like to speak under this one when I start calling speakers up, make sure you list that it's 3A, or if you'd like to speak under the next one, 3B, and so on, so I can call you under the correct item. With that, I will start with Carol Shaw, followed by Eve Leeds and Natasha Todorovic.

Good afternoon. Hi. Oh, don't start yet. Wait. Hey. Now we can start. Hi doesn't count. Let's say this vial has the same parts per million as the Dieldrin as measured at 3,139 cClub. Exposure, as it would be in nature, is random. Maybe you'll get hardly any, or maybe a whopping clump. One teaspoon can kill a fifty pound child. Relax, it's a small bottle. The small creatures in the lagoon don't have such good odds. Want a dropper's worth in your drink today? A dropper full every day for two months?

It will only be during construction. Feel safer knowing a fabric silt fence screened out the deldren? Today you'll be making that choice for your community if you grant a coastal permit and you're wrong. Do we watch a die off in the Arroyo Burrough Estuary? Children participating in programs at the Watershed Resource Center can monitor the bountiful diversity of fish, birds, and mammals suffer and die. The children are also at risk. A child can get cancer, Parkinson's, and a whole list of other maladies. Everyone who uses the recreation area is at risk. Surfers, swimmers, families, guests, pests, pets. It's a popular place.

The city will incur a lot of litigation. 3139 Sea Cliff slopes to a creek that drains directly into the estuary. If Santa Barbara doesn't do this properly, it will potentially be responsible for huge liability just for the benefit of residential developers. This project doesn't comply with Santa Barbara's local postal coastal plan. The coastal act, it's too close and the impact on a sensitive natural habitat and recreation area is too great.

As deciders, you stand in our collective shoes. The risk is too great. On the side of safety. Once the soil is disturbed, our health deteriorates, the environment degraded, we cannot go back to the beautiful treasure of geography that we call Henry's Beach, Arroyo Borough, Santa Barbara home. As designed, please deny this coastal permit. Require environmental review. Be our heroes. Be our guardians. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we'll have Eve Leeds, followed by Natasha Todorovic.

Thank you for letting me speak. Is this is the mic on? Okay. It's only two minutes. I thought I'd have three, so I've had to cut a lot out. But, I've agreed with the amount of toxic effects that this chemical is really horrific. And I'm terrified to live in an area where it might be spread out. So I won't go into that. You've heard all of that. But I want to address the use of a CEQA exemption.

Under CEQA, cost alone can never justify bypassing environmental review. Even if a project is considered small or under a fiscal threshold, a categorical exemption does not apply when there is a reasonable possibility of significant environmental impacts. And I believe this project does have significant environmental impacts. The guidelines in that section 15,300 make it really clear that exemptions do not apply where hazardous materials, and dialdrin should be considered a hazardous material. This is truly a long lasting legacy toxin that was banned for a really big reason.

It's horrific, and it still is. It's still as potent in that soil today as it was in the original making of it. It's just it's less dense, but it is extremely toxic. So this is not about proving that harm will definitely occur. CEQA only requires that a fair argument that harm may occur, and this is written in your documents. Given the known contamination, the dust exposure pathway, the proximity to homes and children, the direct connection to sensitive wildlife and water resources, that standard has clearly been met. If grading is allowed to proceed at all, it has to be to much stricter things. It was backtracked now. They're not doing 25 on all of the dirt. It's going do it on 1% instead of all of it.

So 99% is not done at the levels that I would hope it would be done for. More fundamentally, if the city believes the project truly poses no significant environmental risk, then an environmental impact report should confirm that conclusion. Relying on an exemption instead creates the appearance that potential impacts are being avoided rather than evaluated. I'm asking you to please require an environmental impact report so that decisions are made on full information.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we'll have Natasha Todorovic, followed by Craig Leeds.

Have you ever pulled your finger along the dust, maybe on a window sill? And have you ever wondered what was in it? Well today we heard what might be in our dust. Now the applicant's lawyer tells you trust the experts. Well the experts, all of the agencies as Gil let us know earlier, were like oh that was somebody else's problem.

So we now need to trust the experts, says the lawyer who's not an expert. And earlier we heard, oh, it's not hazardous waste, but it's contaminated and it's hazardous. So the reason we're here is it just a number. You know, there's a million dollar threshold and we do it on the cheap and then we you know keep it going. Or if we raise it and actually do what's needed, then it makes it more expensive.

Well, this is already expensive. This applicant had just done it a little bit differently. We wouldn't be here. I had, four estimates on my house, from painters. And what they needed to do was scrape the paint and sand it and then repaint.

And one of them said, you know, you've got lead. I'm like, wow. And what they did was they had to tent it and they had to cover it in plastic so my neighbors wouldn't get lead. That's pretty serious. And here we have dust that's good to me going up in the air, floating onto our windowsills without the containment that even lead paint would require. Now, I had the discretion to choose a regular painter or the guys who specialized in lead paint. I took the guys who specialized in lead paint. There are experts who can tackle this.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we will have Craig Leeds, followed by Corey Rafferty.

I thought I had three minutes. I'll read half now, and half on item B. I live with four generations, aged nine to 93, on Braemar across the street from the new subdivision. I'm concerned about the methodology of removing the extremely toxic soil on the property. It's full of mercury, ditchy, and worst of all, the neurotoxin, dieldrin. I've heard them in places up to a thousand times over the EPA limits of these poisons. Dieldrin is much more toxic than DDT and can stay poisonous to the soil for several decades. It lasts much longer in clay soil, which is typical of our neighborhood. It's a semi volatile compound that can travel far in dust. When exposed to air, it turns into photodieldrin, which is more toxic even than dieldrin itself.

Please note that the orchid nursery was not an ordinary farm. Plants grown were decorative and not to be eaten. Consequently, there were no qualms about loading down the soil with an inordinate amount of highly toxic banned pesticides. It's not an ordinary transition to residential. The dangers in the soil to the neighbors and community are real.

The lives of my family and neighbors are at stake here. I don't want it to be the cause of cancer for one of us a few years from now. We'll never know that the soil removal process was the cause. I can imagine that the most toxic soil can be removed and the slightly less toxic soil moved around without generating any toxic dust that might cause grave harm to the property's neighbors, and especially to the nonprofit organic farm downwind and just a few feet across the lane. I understand that the owners will describe a very safe sounding process for soil removal, but when the bulldozers are on the ground, you know that shortcuts will be taken and that will put us all in harm's way. There's no reassurance that shortcuts will not be taken. Thank

you for your comments.

Thank you. Next up, we'll have Corey Rafferty.

Sorry, that's a typo. It's Laurie. Unfortunately, we all live in a toxic world. I'm sure nobody is going to challenge that. I can speak with experience of growing up on a farm, fourth generation ranching family in Santa Paula, and probably had all this exposure to myself growing up. We moved to Yankee Farm from the Mesa thirty years ago. I did our due diligence. We knew there was an orchid farm. I'm like, Okay, I know this. I had the background of ranching even though it was edibles and not plants, but someone's going to take care of it.

And all of our thirty years of living there, this project that is up to do the soil remediation is the best possible solution we have yet to get rid of toxic soil.

They're going

to be watering the soil. I've read all the reports. I've read all the reports. The staff hearing officers prepared, and you can cliche say, Trust the experts, but that's what we have to do. All of us got to think of the future. We want clean soil. You just don't cover it up. You just don't ignore this piece of property for another thirty years. I know people are really emotional about it, but these remediation projects happen all over our city, like happen all over The U. S. It even happened on the ranch I grew up with. When the Thomas Fire sparked a blaze on one of the rancher's sheds. It burned to the ground. FEMA came in, didn't spray water, and scooped out three feet of soil. It's done all the time.

I trust the process. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Before I move on to virtual participation, I do have two speaker slips that don't have item numbers on them. Greg Welch, were you looking to speak under this item or the second one? This one? Okay. You can come up to the podium at this time.

Thank you. I mean, the thing that everyone agrees on is these chemicals are toxic, and it's really regrettable that they're in the soil, but they are. Every day, we are all exposed to risk by chemicals all around us. Most of us probably parked in a parking garage. Even in that parking garage, there are carcinogens according to the state of California. I'd like to echo the comment that was just made. This is a professional process overseen by experts. There will be lots of public scrutiny. There will be lots of expert scrutiny in this process. This is the best opportunity we have as a neighborhood to see this threat removed under professional provisions and professional supervision.

People worry about the contamination of the environment, but they don't seem to be worried about the current contamination of the environment and the threat that it poses to the lagoon and the people who use those. And I do think that there's just, you know, there's too much fear mongering going on. There's too much criticism of experts in our society, and look where that's getting us. Thanks.

Thank you. One more Tim Kieran, I do not have an item number for you either. Were you looking to speak under this item? Okay. Come on up at this time.

Tim Yes. My name is Tim Caron, and I'm a retired health care professional, a disabled vet, and I'm also the father of one of the principals of the project, Dale Karen. I also happen to be the grandfather of three lovely grandchildren that will be playing on the very dirt that covers the soil that is contaminated underneath. So for those reasons, you can see I'm very passionate about it and I'm very concerned. I would like to also mention that I'm concerned about all the neighbors that are on the perimeter.

And I'd like to just compliment Dale and Jason, the two principals, for actually going around and meeting with each of the individual neighbors to discuss not only their concerns, but how the project was gonna move in the most safe and expedient manner. And I'd also would like to note that one of the neighbors in the last hearing actually stated he was very happy that someone who was finally buying the property after fifteen plus years because someone will finally be dealing with it because he knows that all the neighbors have been breathing that dust every time the wind blows across that knoll. And I would also like to, at this point, just to congratulate or not congratulate rather, but to commend all the individuals and the city planners, all the experts, all the scientists in doing the job, doing their due diligence. And I can tell you, particularly as a parent and grandparent, that I trust the work that has been done, and I hope people will set aside their individual feelings, work together, and get this project done. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have a speaker's look for Bowen Lee for this item. You can approach at this time.

I just wanna say, as a concern, Santa Barbara citizen and local neighbor to, I kinda echo what Laurie was saying, trust the process. It seems like these people are wanting to do what's right, remove contaminated soil. I get that it's a sensitive issue, but it seems like the person after Laurie also said this is one of the best opportunities to get this dirt cleaned up, and the neighborhood needs it. So thanks.

Female Thank you. Thank you. With that, I do not have any more speaker slips for this item. If anyone in the audience would like to speak, you can approach the podium at this time. Otherwise, I will move on. Do you want to speak under this one? Just state your name and then.

My name is Steven Lewick, and I am Gil's neighbor. I own the property next door. And that property is the property that has the organic farm. And my concern, well Gil has delineated a lot of my concerns. But I'll just cut to the chase here.

I'll read what a letter. I sent a letter that I guess is late. But I'll just read a portion of that. As a safeguard to the health and safety of the residents who share property lines I do share a property line 50 feet from some of the contaminated soil. Who share property lines with the applicant?

The applicant should be required to conduct soil testing to ascertain if there has been a failure of mitigation efforts. We've talked about all the efforts that people are going to be what we're going to be going through. And I'm sure they're going to work. But I'm not certain. So my point is that the soil surrounding the properties, if they are found to have been exposed to toxic dust, the applicant should remove the material toxic materials, and replace the soil removed.

The applicant should also be responsible for the cost of these procedures. I want my lot tested afterwards. You can tell me it's not going to happen. You're going to be fine. I trust you, but I want it verified. I want testing. And I want the applicant to pay for the testing. The above safeguards are especially important in my situation. My property is being used to grow vegetable crops to be distributed to food banks and other agencies that distribute food to the less fortunate members of our community. This enterprise is organized by the nonprofit agency, Bucket Brigade, Sorry.

I leased the property to them for $1 a year. No profit. Thank you. I just think it should be tested afterwards.

Thank you for your comments. And thank you to all of you for joining for public comment today. Okay. We can continue if some folks have more.

Thank you. My name Kristina Sklar, also a Santa Barbara resident and concerned for the soil and the health of our oceans, our soil for growing our food. We really appreciate you're growing our food too. And we know that the soil is contaminated, and there are already chemicals in it. Whenever the wind blows, it's blowing already chemical contaminated soil. So the guardians and heroes are the ones who are gonna help remediate that soil, make it new, make it grow healthy, beautiful things. And I just want to point out that that's what this group of people wants to do to our soil. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Quinn Bergard, and I actually grew up in this neighborhood. I've lived there for about fifteen years. Constantly, take a walk down that street and walk past this property. And for the past fifteen years when I've seen it, it's overgrown with bushes. The one house on there is red tagged. It's really not a great sight to see. And I think improving the property and having three lovely families living there, being able to enjoy it and run around, and hopefully three big beautiful houses there is a great thing to see. And for the people that say we don't have the experts, I mean, we have a ton sitting right here. We saw a large list on the TV.

And I don't think any of them can call themselves an expert in this matter. So it's strange to me that they're asking all these questions when these people have done the research before them. So I'm very happy, and I would like to see this project go through.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll ask one more time. Is there anyone else that would like to speak under 3A? Otherwise, we'll move on to virtual public comment. But I'm not seeing any movement at this time.

Can I use my rebuttal time now?

No. We'll go to that after questions.

Male Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah, no worries. So, for virtual participation, if anyone online would like to speak, you can raise your hand at this time. I do see one hand raised currently, which is for Jacques. So, I will allow you to speak. And you should be able to unmute.

Good afternoon, Planning Commission. Can everybody hear me?

Yes. Yes. My name

is Jacques Habra. I own the property Kitty Corner from lease property 202 Braemar Drive. I've been following this process since the inception. I've been in direct contact with the owners, some of which I've known here in the community for decades. And, clear, there's been a substantial amount of research and analysis done.

And what's more, we have verified, confirmation from the city planners, city engineers on what needs to be done with this land. The fact of the matter is it's an extremely expensive, time consuming, and difficult process, and we should be applauding and thanking the subject property owners to do this remediation. It's been, something that's affected the neighborhood, whether directly or indirectly, for decades, and, that's why the property has been sitting for so long. No one's wanted to tackle this, but that hasn't mitigated the fact that there is contaminated soil that needs to be resolved. So in in short, I certainly support the project.

I do not see any apps or areas where the work, and the research has been, unclear or inconclusive. And what's more, the parties that are responsible, the subject party subject property owners will be doing the important, aspects of dust mitigation in the community. They know that these are new asphalt to the roads. So when the the the soil is removed for cleaning, they're gonna take care of dust mitigation. They're gonna be very mindful of the neighbors. They're just going beyond just the subject property and realizing this is a neighborhood issue, and they're doing what they have to do to address neighborhood. So thank you, and I project.

Thank you. At this time, I don't see any more hands raised for virtual public comment, so I will acknowledge that we received written correspondence from Gilbery, Eve Leeds, Craig Leeds, Mark Pomerantz, Maureen Rifoni, Lisa Fell, Diane Hooper, Michael Russell, Tom Foley, Josie Hoffman, Carol Shaw, and Mark and Kathy Zarate, and give it back to you.

Thank you, and thank you again to members of the community for coming out for public comment. We will now turn it over to my fellow commissioners for questions, and then after that, we will do the rebuttal period. So, who would like to go first? Can everyone go at once?

Vice Chair Boss. Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of questions. And first of I'll just note that I had after reviewing the packet, I had, I think, 20 questions, but after reviewing some of the hearings, it went on to just three. So, thank you for asking a lot of the questions and thank you to the experts for answering them.

One of them was today more about explaining the process for getting to the exemption, and I do feel like slide 16 to 18 answered that, so thank you for adding that in. I do have a question about the conditions of approval, and this might be for Ms. Harris. I couldn't find anything about like a detailed a signage detailing the process for complaint or the stop work process, and I know it was explained in detail during the SHOW hearing, but is that clearly visible? Is that one of the conditions of approval? And if not, I was thinking we could add it under D2 or E9.

Thank you, Vice Chair, Boss, and Ms. Harris can chime in if necessary. But I did I do have a couple of the conditions from the permit to operate and the conditions of approval of the coastal development permit in some slides so I can pull those up, and those are related to stopping the work. So here are two of the conditions from the permit to operate and more so just relating to having a person designated for the desk monitoring and that name and telephone number of the persons to be provided to the district. And maybe APCD can speak more specifically to those conditions as well.

And then of the other conditions of the coastal development permit and also the conditions of the permit to operate are incorporated into the conditions of the coastal development permit. But this is our standard neighborhood notification prior to construction, condition of approval that requires neighborhood notification and then just some information for neighbors in the contact to file those complaints that would then be relayed to the project team in order to stop the work. So, that's kind of the connection there with the conditions of approval with how the neighbors can file a complaint. Okay.

So, if I'm a neighbor and I'm just walking by and I am concerned about something, there'll be a big clear sign that tells me who to call or Yes.

I'm so sorry. Just realized the presentation was not mirroring on the TV here, but this is condition E9 of the Coastal Development Department with a construction contact sign.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. I think a couple of my other questions are probably going to be asked by others, but that was my primary question for now. I just wanted to make sure that it was clear who to contact if there was a concern or complaint, and that the process for stop work was visible. So, thank you for pointing those out.

Thank you, Vice Chair Bosch. We'll now go to Commissioner DeLucia.

Yes, I have a couple of questions. The applicant's attorney, Beth, I have a question for you, actually. You had put up a slide with four conditions on it, and I guess maybe staff can help. Were those incorporated into the permit today that we're looking at? The coastal permit?

Commissioner DeLuccio, through the chair, those conditions of approval were the conditions added by the staff hearing officer that are Male

Those are the same ones you had on that slide? Female Okay.

Yes.

Thanks. Then, I had just like a couple of minor questions. I don't know if anybody can answer this. The appellant mentioned something about a stream within 100 feet of the site, which would trigger needing to go be going to the Coastal Commission. How do we determine that it's not 100 feet within the stream?

Yeah. Commissioner DeLuccio, I have Erin Markey, city's creeks division manager. You can take that on. And Erin, I do have photos of the adjacent drainage, if you think that would be helpful.

Thank you.

Sure. I don't know if it's required, but, Erin Markey, Creek's division manager with the city. Our staff have been out and reviewed the biological assessment that was prepared by STORE as part of this project, and agree with their determination that there is not a creek per the definition in the Coastal UP and the city's municipal code on this site. Yeah, I don't know if that fully answers your question.

Well, thank you for clarifying that. Yeah. And, I have one final question. This is really a very basic question perhaps. I know there's a condition about their construction activities are to be conducted only during dry weather. That's a good condition. Can somebody explain the procedure just a little bit briefly? And is there any watering going to be going on here? And how's that handled on the site, as they do the cleanup?

Yes, Commissioner. We define we have we're in Southern California, which is a Mediterranean climate. So, we have wet seasons during typically during the winter and spring months kind of going into late spring sometimes. So we pretty much know that once we have a certain amount, once we reach late March, early April, that we're typically not going to get any storms. At that time, we basically give the go ahead to say that, yes, you can do the excavation work.

That's pretty much county wide that we do stuff like that. And if there is a storm that is going to be coming on the horizon, which does happen occasionally, we do because the monsoon storm is coming up from Gulf Of California, Gulf Of Mexico or not Gulf Of Mexico, Gulf Of California. So we do look at the forecast, and we would shut down during those times and then let the site dry out to where we're not creating a hazard by excavating during that time. Because not only does the storm's good because it does wet down and create less dust, but it also creates problems with hazards for large machinery working in muddy areas. We wanna have that dry out.

So it's kind of a balance that we're looking for. So there would be a period of time after, if we get one of these storms that does come up, that we would verify that it was, in fact, good to go for not causing hazards.

Well, thank you for explaining that. That's really very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you. Commissioner Delicchio, Commissioner Balkhy.

Okay. Thank you, madam chair. I've got a number of questions, so I'm trying to figure out where to start on this one. We'll start with sort of how we got here as to the original wrap. When it was set out and I wanted you to give some background.

I've done remediation of even a super fund site for residential use. So one of the first questions I have is the initial scoping of the RAP, how did you determine where you were going to put your first set of test monitors and what was the protocol for that and under what confidence levels did you make the decision that particular areas are the ones to be tested again and then now determine that the mitigation, the grading plan works?

Yes, Commissioner Backe. What we did is initially look at aerial photos and site historical records to determine where the house was or the hothouse or the grow houses were. And based on that, we tended to bias our sampling in those areas. But we also did site wide sampling too to make sure that we did cover with good confidence the entirety of the site. We did find that there was three hotspots.

And what we do there is when we get a hit on that with the high levels of the constituents that we're looking for, we'll then do step outs. So we'll take soil borings and collect samples at near surface, down a little bit further, down a little bit further. And we look at those results. And if you've got a surface release like we have here, you're going to tend to see stuff that's the concentrations will be a lot higher at the surface than as you go down a few feet due over time, the stuff does sink down into the soil a little bit. So we take samples there.

And if that's not where our cleanup goals are, then we go down a little bit further. And then we keep going like one more just to make sure that we're okay there. Then laterally, we're stepping out and we're verifying because it's kind of like a bull's eye. So you're going to have your hot spot. You find that. And you'll do kind of usually go in the cardinal direction. So you go in four directions each way and keep on doing that same vertical profile as we go outward.

Okay. So I understand that. And that's the normal way it's done. The question I have is because just because you put a grid on it and you did that initial, doesn't necessarily guarantee. It has a confidence protocol. It doesn't necessarily guarantee you won't find something else. Because I even ran into stuff on a quote clean site that back to the conference that it didn't it didn't trigger reaction, reactionary things. But until you dig it all up, you're not going to know whether or not it's there or not. There are going to be surprises. And I think you probably end of your career No.

That have had things just show up that you missed. Or it was near the probe, but it still was there. And I just want to make sure Nothing's perfect in this world.

Nothing is perfect. I will guarantee that. But for sites that I've worked on, the level of sampling, because we're dealing with something that's only in the upper three feet, we wanted to get the grid that we use is a lot more fine than and more involved than we would say have at an oil field sump or something where you pretty much know where it is and you can see it. And so with this, we do have I believe there was about 300 tests done at the site. So for something that's three acres, it's quite rigorous.

Okay. Thank you. As to dust protocols, and this is an APCD question, the applicant is proposing to go sort of an additional level beyond sort of what you would normally require. And my question is, is there something even beyond what they're proposing that if you were doing, you know, the lowest risk, not that there is no risk in this issue, would there be even another protocol that could be done? Commissioner

Bocke, that's a great question. You know, I think first I wanna start out by saying that we believe that the standard conditions that we include in our permit, you know, in all of our permits, we we do hundreds of these types of permits. You know, those are the most rigorous conditions necessary to ensure that there are no issues, no human health issues or environmental issues caused by the project. You know, of course, you can always go beyond

that.

You can do better. You know, our our permits require monitoring every 30 minutes. I think the applicant is proposing to do, monitoring every 15 minutes. Could you do it every 10 minutes? Possibly. I think you'd eventually run into an issue where a human can't get around the perimeter in in, you know, less than a certain amount of time. Could you have two humans doing it? You know, 20 humans, I guess. You could just keep going. Right? But, you have to be realistic and and reasonable. So we believe that our our permit conditions, our standard permit conditions are, exactly what's necessary, but you can go better than that. And I think the applicant has proposed to do that here.

Okay. Now, as to and I'm not sure who's the one, because I don't see anybody from Regional Water Quality Control Board here. But, you know, this site, when it's being remediated, there may be a possibility of an unforeseen rain event, or, you know, there's going to be runoff. And my concern is typical SWIP stuff doesn't you know, the appellant made this comment, and I have seen it many times that the SWIP stuff doesn't work or stuff runs through. So who in the county or the city has analyzed runoff potentials and the theoretical event of water getting into our creeks and into the lagoon and out to the beach.

I mean, has anybody actually gone through that analysis? Because I'm concerned that what I saw was just pretty standard grading stuff that you would have, and it's that stuff doesn't always work. And I'm really concerned that if a worst case scenario happens, we could be having this very, very, very dangerous toxic compound into our water system. Who at the okay. See, there is somebody that okay.

Yeah. Commissioner Balkhy. Erin Markey, again, the Creeks Division Manager. I can kind of speak to that. So, there's a couple avenues.

If the project site is over an acre, which it sounds like it is, they will be required to get a general construction permit directly from the water board as part of that grading activity. When grading limits are over an acre, that's a requirement. So then the water board will be directly involved in monitoring their their measures. Additionally, as part of the city's MS four program, so our our stormwater permit, we have a number of requirements through our permit with the water board that we have to make sure that we are maintaining in the city. So that includes things like construction BMPs that are reviewed by our building staff at the permits in the middle for adequacy and then also inspected during construction.

Additionally, this project, think, has a stormwater pollution prevention plan, which is developed by, like, a it's called a qualified stormwater practitioner and developer. And so under a general permit for a project that's over an acre, that person is is responsible to ensure that that plan is implemented. There's monitoring that's actually required of runoff during storm events if it is to rain during this period. But I think as we've mentioned, the goal is to construct this during a dry period.

My follow-up question is, would it be feasible to basically have the runoff go into some kind of tanking system, so it's actually taken and then tested and determined whether it's hazardous or not?

Yeah. So, I'm not the storm water, the qualified stormwater practitioner for this project. So, I can't say for sure what's possible with the site constraints. But, yes, something like that could be, in theory, designed.

Male Okay. Thank you. Okay. My next set of questions are more on CEQA stuff. I understand the exemption. Did the city itself hire somebody to make an independent analysis as to whether the threshold of the million dollars would be triggered or not or put in the because like any cost estimate, there's like a 20%,

you know,

either way number. So did we go through that independent analysis?

Commissioner Bauke, no, we did not. The CEQA guidelines, the exemption is for small and medium projects of a million dollars or less. I'll add that that exemption was added during the 1990s. The $1,000,000 amount has not changed since. And I see that more as an indicator that puts parameters or maybe a benchmark on what is meant by a small or medium sized project. And so I would recommend that rather than focus on a specific dollar amount that you consider the size, the scale, the scope of activities involved rather than the specific dollar.

Okay. On that, was looking at the, you know, as you get into the details, there's, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, you know, up to 10 different different items. Which one of the 10 different categories are you saying this actually falls in? This is this is

I'm sorry. Could you repeat the

actual law? You know, you can go read through a and b. This would be b one, two, and I can start reading them for you if you want. I'm trying to figure out which ones you're actually believing this is because it has this list.

Commissioner Balkhy, are you looking at a particular page in

the I staff don't I'm not looking at your staff report. I'm looking at the actual law.

Oh, yes. Commissioners, this is section one five three zero three three zero of the CEQA guidelines. And the CEQA guidelines outline the criteria for its classification. The way that CEQA exemptions work is that if a project meets the type of class, then the project can be considered for a categorical exemption. And so, when staff are reviewing for exemptions, they look at does it meet the criteria of that specific exemption.

Right. And and and it says that these are examples of minor cleanup actions and gives examples on trying to understand which of these examples do you believe would be larger or expand beyond what is being proposed? Personally, I think you're right at the border line or maybe even off what is being described here as minor.

Excuse me, Commissioner Bacchea. I see it now where you're looking at. So, it is, Sorry. I believe it stayed in the staff report, and I'm looking for now here. Miss Pujeau, if I

can assist you with that. It's under the excavation and or off-site disposal of contaminated soil, I believe, under that example is listed.

Yes. Thank you, miss Ernest. You're correct. It's under excavation and or off-site disposal of contaminated soils or sledges in regulated units.

Okay. You know, the term regulated units actually means something. I want you to tell me what that means, you know, if this project falls within a regulated unit.

I would like to defer to, county EHS.

Yes. In reading the statute, it does say excavation and or off-site disposal of contaminated soils or sledges in regulated units. So the sledges, they tend to be in a those are more considered regulated units. That would be like tank bottoms from oil field, polling tanks, pits that were from a industrial process versus contaminated soils, which is what we have here. It was not really an industrial process that was causing the waste to happen, but actually a byproduct of practices that were involved at the time.

Okay. Well, thank you for clarifying that. So the next question I have is when you're doing this analysis, which there's a lot of information. There's a lot of information out there. There is also the exceptions.

In this case, we have a organic farm physically next door. And my question to you is why wouldn't that trigger unusual circumstance? This is not generically just out into some random place. You have an organic farm which provides food to the community adjacent. Why wasn't this considered an unusual circumstance and bounce you out of this categorical exemption?

This, commissioner Bocke, this ex this exemption is for remediation actions that happen commonly throughout the city, and the exceptions for unusual circumstances. Excuse me one minute. I'm looking for it. So, the exceptions for unusual circumstances when it comes to the type of hazardous material or site contamination that would make it fall out of that exception would be the ones listed in the hazardous waste exception. And so, that's the Cortezi list, and that refers to a specific type of contamination, Superfund sites, landfills, and most commonly in the city of Santa Barbara, the leaking underground storage tanks.

So, this project didn't fall under one of those.

Okay. Now, I may disagree with you as to but at but but at at the end of the day, even if we had done a CEQA document, most likely, it'd be a mitigated ND at the end of the day, And you'd have a whole bunch of mitigation measures. And you basically would be sort of where we are today as far as what the applicant would have to do. And he's actually proposing something beyond it. So, you know, I'm very torn about sort of where how we process this project, but at the same time, I think we end up in the same place.

It just might go through the legal system or not. But anyway, I'll I'll leave that to the the appellant. Question as to why are we only looking at the remediation when the applicant is clearly in his statements and it's in the record and even in the documents, even the wrap, and it shows this property being subdivided. Why are we not seeing the subdivision? Why are we not seeing the grading plan that goes with the subdivision?

Because those things will also, unless we're going to be doing this twice, have the possibility if there's these unforeseen pockets that may show up. Because unless we're not touching this after we do the remediation grading, how do we know that there's not going to be another round of mitigation on this side? I mean, kicking the soil around. I just don't understand how we can make that determination without going through all of it at once. Because we don't know unless the applicant's saying he's not going to move any more dirt around, know that we're not gonna be possibly having, you know, this dust kicked around.

So could you explain to me why we're not seeing the whole project? I I don't get it.

Commissioner Bakke, are you the subsequent development of the project would also have to submit an application, and that would also be subject to sequel review. So, at that time when we actually have a development of the project, then we would consider what that is and analyze it then. Without having the details of that subsequent development, we're not able to fully do that analysis.

But it's surely reasonably foreseeable that there was going to be a proposal. They've even stated on the records, and it's in the documents. I just don't understand why we're not seeing the whole of the project at this point.

Commissioner Balkhy, through the chair, the applicant has chosen to separate them out. So, as Ms. Pujo said, we're limited in this review as to the grading. And then, you'll see most likely, you might see this again in the future when they submit their subdivision, their tentative parcel map.

Okay. And I have my one last question here is, are we limited, and could we add a condition of post mitigation testing for the organic farm property?

I will defer to the case planner.

Okay. So to go back to your previous question, in terms of remediation, looking at what the if this will help you at all, subdividing it, We have taken a look at the data. And as I stated earlier, it was quite rigorous in terms of the soil sampling we were doing. And we took a look at what we would do, what the conditions would look like after we've remediated the soil. And we looked at both the parcel as a whole, as a three acre parcel, and we also looked at each individual parcel themselves and found that there would be no risk to the residents there or ecological receptors for each parcel separately as an individual parcel, and then as a whole as their as the whole parcel itself.

Okay. Thank you for that.

And then in terms of sampling the soil right now at the Yankee Farm, Unfortunately, this site and this whole area was agricultural. So we know that there was a release at the site from at the parcel that we're looking at themselves of them using the pesticides. However, for any other site within Santa Barbara County that was agricultural from the 1950s onward to the 1970s, We're not saying that there is contamination there, but there is always a possibility of use of these pesticides by previous owners. There are not a lot of records. The only reason we have this site known is because we do have records of this site where they did have these grow houses.

And based on that, that gave us an idea that this, in fact, would be an issue that we would have to look at, and it did prove to be correct. Now if we have another site that used to be agricultural from the '50s to the '70s, we would have to make the assumption that pesticide use not was not is a possibility that it was used there, but not necessarily that it was there. So for something like this, we would have to if they're concerned about the dust falling onto their property, they would have to do a pre remediation assessment by themselves to determine what the baseline is for their parcel. And then we would look at it again after the remediation was completed and then take samples again and then compare that. It would probably have to be quite rigorous.

And that would be something that you usually follow on if the app would not fall on to the applicant, but anyone nearby would be their purview to do that.

Okay. Commissioner

Balkhy, as a follow-up to your question, we can't condition this property to test on a property that they don't have that they don't own?

Yeah, as far as the kind of testing, I'm thinking about, okay, so say the monitors go off. So, oh, we've got an exceedance. Yeah, the exceedance will be where those monitors are, but do we know that exceedance traveled outside the boundaries of the property? I mean, I I I could see very possible that exceedance end up on the organic farm. Is there a way to either monitor that possible exceedance or not as part of the protocols we're doing with this project?

Yeah. So the the way our our monitoring requirements work is that they have, as I mentioned, every 30 minutes, although they're they're offering to do it every 15 minutes, they would walk essentially the perimeter of the excavation site. So where they're doing the active excavation work to see whether or not it's it's tripping the monitors, it's exceeding a threshold. If it does exceed a threshold, then the requirements tell them that they must walk around the perimeter of the property to determine whether or not it's exceeding a threshold at the property. If it's exceeding a threshold at the property, that would be considered a violation of our permit, and they would have to immediately cease operations and wet down the site and do any other, mitigation necessary to make that, that dust concentration go down immediately.

They have to notify us within a certain number of hours. I think it's four hours, of the exceedance. And certainly any, any members of the public could call in to our agency if they have concerns, during the operations and let us know about their concerns. And and we have a complaint line. We also receive online complaints. So if there was any concern that that wasn't being done appropriately or or being done fast enough, we could certainly go out and we always would send somebody out there to investigate.

Could you put a monitor, you know, on the neighbor's property? I mean, is that something that could be done? I mean, just, you know, if there's an exceedance, go see if that one went off too. I'm I'm I'm trying to find a way to basically protect what I consider a sensitive resource. I look at the organic farm equivalent to having a senior's home next door, okay, as far as the sensitivity. And I'm looking for ways in which we could protect our food supply in this community. And so, I'm looking for suggestions.

Yeah. For sure. I can totally appreciate that. And and, yeah, I mean, you could have a stationary, monitor installed. That is a a possibility. It's not something that we require per standard. It's also hard to determine exactly where to sight it. Obviously, the wind can change directions and even a couple degrees of wind shift, can happen kinda all the time, can change whether or not it would it would impact oh, whether or not, you know, you'd you'd be seeing the true impacts at the at the the the spot where you've cited that, monitor. So it's difficult, but, you know, as far as is it possible, you can sure. You can put a monitor kinda anywhere you want.

So, yeah, they just mentioned that they put up the the property, a map of the property and the the property boundary. And each number that you can see there in the circle, that's a location where they would be doing a a monitor if the monitors were to go off right next to or or, you know, closer to the active excavation work. So that's the action boundary is what we call it. And they would go out and send somebody around, and they would have to take a measurement at each one of those points every thirty minutes. And if any of those were to go off above above our threshold, they would then immediately have to take action to to eliminate what was causing that exceedance.

One quick question. Mister Berry's property is which one? The one in the gray outlined in green or the one outlined in

purple? Commissioner Bauke, his in pink.

It's in pink. And which one is the the farm? I don't recall which one of those.

To the right at

The farm.

3058 Braemar Drive.

The one that's the right that sort of cut off? Yes. Okay. Madam Chair, those are the questions I had.

Thank you very much, Commissioner Balkhy. I'll be somewhat brief in my comments or questions. So first, there's been lots of talk about the experts. So I'd just like to understand how many projects have you all from the county side overseen that are akin to the scale and kind of levels of toxins that we're evaluating in this project?

I've been working with the county since 1999, and I've probably overseen about a 100 or so excavations, maybe more.

That are similar to this type of scale.

I've seen ones that are smaller. I've seen ones that are larger. This is pretty small in terms of what we typically see. I know that it's been brought up that it was compared to the police department. With that, they were basically excavating down to 15 feet there.

That required them to put in shoring, which is probably why it was about $4,000,000 because they had to put shoring around the entire process and perimeter of the site to make sure that the streets didn't fall in on the site. This is only going to about fifteen five feet down at most, with the majority of it about three feet down. So basically about this high or this deep down. That's about one or two bucket scoops down in terms of the type of excavator that they have there. If Carly can show you, here's some I've got some slides of what some of the excavations I worked on in the county.

This is in North County right next to a next to a another type of farm up there. So this was in someone's yard where they had they were digging up an oil filled sump. So you can see that we're not really generating huge amounts of dust with these. And this one, they've got you can see in the background, they've got a water tank there for dust suppression. They'll use the water for that.

This is the city police department. This was about a couple months ago. You can see they've got this is a large excavation. And as far as I know, they didn't have any dust issues there. And you can see that right at the property line, we do have commercial buildings and office buildings there.

This is in El Estero Creek. So here we've been doing some work right next to the you see is the ballast for the Union Pacific Railroad and Amtrak Railroad, and we're going through the swales here. This is Downtown Santa Barbara. We've got a I believe that's a residence next to it. So we did have this is down on Haley Street, and you can see we've got, you know, water for dust suppression. This has a lot of the earthquake debris in it.

And how many of these it sounds like you have a vast experience. How many projects have toxins that are similar to the ones that are in this specific project?

In terms of cleanup of pesticides, I've probably done about 10 of those.

Okay. And when you've gone through these projects and there's a budget estimate of how much the remediation will be, how many times are they around the budget estimate or 50% higher? What's Unfortunately,

I don't deal with the budgets. That's up to the applicant to determine that. Then a lot of that's done through the city of Santa Maria. So they'll be doing the secret determinations on that. But in terms of the costs, Steve Campbell is here. He may be able to elucidate on that.

Okay. In terms of how many how often is it that you start this remediation efforts and then to kind of Commissioner Balkhy's points that then you find out that there's more than you thought and you have to go back and it's a bigger project than we expected. Is that typical

to me? It depends on the project. And normally when there's something like that that happens, it's not where you've got this it's pretty obvious what happened here. They had a grow farm. They were spraying in these areas. You can see by the maps that we show of where they're going to be digging out, where they were spraying. Where we have issues is when we're in Downtown Santa Barbara where there's the earthquake debris from the nineteen twenty five earthquake. That's when we tend to find a little more surprises. Or at the police station, We've got an area that was had different uses over the time period. They found an underground storage tank while they're digging around.

This is more of a rural, as you could call it, area. So surprises are generally not going to happen there. They if they were building something, the building plans would have shown for these greenhouses. If they were going put an underground storage tank, That would have shown in the plans. We tend to see that more in being when you've got overlays of different uses over the years, whereas this was a grow farm.

It was vacant, then a grow farm for twenty five, thirty years, and then it's been vacant since. So based on that, we know that there is more than likely not going to be something there versus, say, at the Electrify America spot that they're putting in over on Carrillo Street, underground storage tanks there, because it was at one time a gas station. And then it was a Greyhound station, plus it had the earthquake debris there. So there's quite a bit of material there.

Okay. Thank you for your answers. Two more questions. There's been discussion about 25 versus 50 microgram limit. I understand that is the county's direction of how we evaluate what we're doing on that. There's been a lot of discussion on that over the years. Could you just walk us through why we're doing, you know, your recommendation versus what the Mr. Gill is concerned about?

Sure. I can I can give it a try or at least explain, you know, why our our recommendation is what it is? So our limit in our permits that we've had for for many years now is, as you mentioned, fifty micrograms per meter cube. That's the threshold that if it's above that, that means, you know, they have to stop operation and and do something to mitigate any dust that's being created. The 25 microgram per meter cube actually, sorry.

Let me back up. That would be averaged over a thirty second period. So if there if if you have a meter, a monitor out there, a handheld monitor, and you you notice that you're hitting over 50 and it lasts for thirty seconds, or longer, then that means you have to do something. If it's just an instantaneous spike, you know, one second and then it drops immediately back down, instruments can have those kinds of errors. So, you know, we average it over thirty seconds.

I think the 25 microgram per meter cube, that's been coming up. I've been hearing that number thrown around quite a bit. My understanding is that that number kinda came up to begin with because a different air pollution control district to the south of us, it's actually South Coast Air Quality Management District, has a rule that specifically requires the 25 microgram per meter cubed threshold. Their threshold, however, is averaged over, I believe it's an hour or an hour and a half. It's much, much, much longer than our averaging period.

So in our estimation, a higher threshold number but a much shorter averaging period is actually much more rigorous or strenuous than a much, you know, not much, but a lower threshold number over a much longer averaging period. Just the way averages work, You know, it's it's gonna be take so much more actual dust in the air to hit a 25 microgram per meter cube number for an hour and a half than it would to actually hit a 50 microgram per meter cube limit for thirty seconds.

So Female

Thank you.

That explanation was helpful. And then my last question is, you know, I agree with many of the commenters. I think we have a shared goal. Everybody wants to protect the community. Everybody wants to protect the farm. And obviously, the applicant that is seeking to have their family live there wants to protect their family. So, if we don't move forward with doing any remediation, what are the dangers then? Like if we just leave it as it is versus this must be addressed, does this need to be addressed at some point? Because I would assume that having this just stay as it is is also somewhat dangerous versus taking the steps now to do the remediation plan that you as experts have laid out.

Yes. As has been stated, this is a very good opportunity to have the material removed. Right now, there is nothing covering the material. It's been like that. And it's been like that since the green the pothouses or grow houses were demolished. So in our opinion is that it's better to get this out of there. And the standard for doing this is excavation and off-site disposal. Majority of the soil that's contaminated is focused in one small area. It's very easy to get to. This is a very simple project in terms of what we work on.

We see the problem. We've got it defined. We now know how to remove. We know how to get rid of it, knock it down. And I think it would benefit the neighborhood to have this material removed sooner rather than having to drag out again for more and more years of endless appeals.

Thank you.

Which we've seen for the last twenty years.

Okay. I appreciate your time, and thank you for addressing my questions. That is the remainder of my questions. Do any of my commissioners have any additional ones? Commissioner Deluccio?

Thank you for all the questions that my fellow commissioners have asked. Can we look at a few pages in this document? Because, the appellant had come up with three additional mitigation, suggestions. And you just spoke about the first one, the 25, and how used the SLA, I think, uses that, and you're using 50. So, I get that.

I understand that. And then, the second one had to do with the fifteen minutes versus the thirty minutes, which where that's the condition that you're going go with the 15. And then, on page 85, there's a mitigation measure number four having to do with airborne dust suppression and fog mist, etcetera. So, I don't know. Can you maybe guys explain that one to me, if that's something that we've we're incorporating, or if not necessary, or covered somewhere else?

Yes. I can speak to the fog misting. Misting. That is something that generally would not be used at a site like this. That is for areas where you have a significant amount of very fine material in a very dry environment where you have very low soil moisture. Moisture. That would be like, say, lake bed out in Elantra, like they did when that's part of the mitigation they have there because there is dust there. There's fine particles. We do not have that here. So the proposal from Mr.

Barry was to have these high powered fog machines, which would require four sixty volt generators. Well, you're sure Mr. Harris can speak about the emissions from a generator like that, a diesel generator. But in terms of what I would be looking at, you would be generating about for a four eight hour day, you would be generating about 1,600 gallons of I can't remember exactly what I did the calculations. But what it would evolve is placing about two inches of water over the area.

That would create a very unsafe environment because we would now be creating mud everywhere and that would just be after the first day. So if you keep on doing that, the soil is then going to become saturated. It's not going to start keep soaking up the moisture. At some point, it's going to start running off. Now, you're going have a problem with runoff. So, I would not recommend this. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. I just wanted to see if we've covered everything here. So, thank you. Thank

you. Commissioner Bauke.

Just a follow-up question on watering. What is the schedule watering schedule? How are we going to keep the dust down to basically as low as we can here without having those external problems like runoff and things,

which is

I have concerns of that. So

Yeah. Typically, it will be the combination of the air monitors and visual. So we would be looking at whenever we see dust being generated, which is typically when they're excavating. What happens usually and his standard practice is as they are excavating there will be a guy with a basically fire hose. And if the dust looks like it's generating, if the soil is not cohesive enough and starts generating dust, at that point he's going to ask, hey, can you just make sure the dust monitors are doing good there?

And they're going to be watering it that as they're scooping it out. So they would actually be focusing on they take a scoop, spray that with water as it goes into the truck. And we usually do on this direct loading into the truck so it's not doing one load over here, then another load there. And I'm not sure if we're doing that on this project or not, but that is typically what can be done to reduce the dust also. But again, it's based on what our visual observations and what our meters are saying.

Would there be any credence in coming up with some soil moisture percentage that you should just have on-site setting up water so it stays at a number that's, you know, or somewhere near that. So

tends tends to be to have

a problem to mitigate.

I understand. We will be the soil in this area is not a lake bed. It's not we're not, well technically we are in a desert. But it's not a desert like you have where it's going to be generating dust that you've got, that you see in some of these horrible pictures of dust everywhere. So it's going to be more of a visual observation.

It will be up to the geologist on staff. Mr. Campbell will probably have a either he or someone else will be out there, and he would be the one doing the geotechnical aspect of that, saying, yeah, we need more water as this is going along. Plus, along with the fact that we would look at the meters, if we were having a problem with the meters, then we would definitely say, okay, let's get more water suppression here to knock the dust down.

Knowing that Mr. Campbell's in the audience, Mr. Campbell, could I ask you a question about that? This goes back to my career in the construction world. How do you assure that this is going to happen in real was

back there hoping to jump in, help So Tom Steve Campbell, Campbell Geo. I'm the geologist for the applicant. We've done a lot of these over the years. First of all, I just want to get out. We had a nice well, you folks were out.

Some of you were out at the site on Tuesday, and it was wet. And I wanted to clarify something that mister Razek brought up, which was the schedule of of the work is not limited to dry season. If we had a permit today, we would be doing it today. So which would be ideal because it's soil moisture is high. To your question, commissioner Balkhy, you know, we aren't gonna be measuring soil moisture, but we can see it, and we all saw it on Tuesday morning that things were nice and wet out there. And I think a lot of the neighbors commented, gosh, if we could excavate today, we wouldn't be worried about dust.

And that's actually where I was coming from. Yeah. Physical situation out there, if I put a monitor out there, could have figured out probably what it was. But if we could just keep the site at sort of at that range, and it doesn't turn into mud, but at the same time, it's moist and you're not getting dust. And that's why I'm asking you, is there a way to proceed from a day, you know, a methodology to actually just keep it at that sort of in range?

Yes.

Short answer is yes. And here's here my experience doing this for forty years in Santa Barbara. You don't have when you do an excavation project, you you immediately can use the fire hose. We also have a pressure washer, which creates a nice fine mist. And just very simply, somebody is standing there next to the excavator bucket, getting that wet as soon as it touches ground.

We also pre water, pre wet stuff. And so dust control is not, to my opinion, and I know many might not share that, it's not challenging. We can do it. The other thing to fall back on is is our permit to operate from Santa Barbara County APCD. We're talking about monitoring particulate numbers of 25 micrograms per cubic meter versus 50, Visible dust is not allowed. That's a shutdown. Any member of the public can call in a complaint and shut us down at any time. We also are monitoring volatile organic compounds with a separate meter.

Mhmm.

And any noted odor is also grounds for shutdown. So we have four parameters besides just the particulates. So we have a challenge out there to stay with it, but we have been able to do it on the numerous projects I've worked on. So we don't have projects where we're excavating and we have enormous, and I know it's a scary picture, an enormous cloud of dust that's going off into the atmosphere and going around downtown city of Santa Barbara and circling the earth a number of times. So that just my experience doesn't happen and we can control it. And if we can't, we shut it down.

So Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you to my fellow commissioners for all their questions. We will now go on to the rebuttal period. Ms. Carmen, can you please remind us how much time the appellant and the applicant has left to provide rebuttals if they so wish?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. The appellant has one minute and forty two seconds left, and the applicant has seven minutes and thirty seconds left.

Great. Would you like to go first since you're Sure. Okay.

Why not? I just had four points. Should I start?

Yes.

Okay. There was well, there's been talks here about experts and what kind of quality work they do. I just wanna make a quick point here. There was a test I mean, there was a report that was given to the county environmental health department about a year ago, and it had to do with it was an environmental study with trees and vegetation on this site. And I'm a little bit shocked and upset.

I believe it was this gentleman here that actually did it himself I'm not sure, but I think it was him agreed to allow the applicant to say and get by with that the site would be paved 75% by the building, parking lot, say, a patio, whatever, agreed to use 75 paving so that it wouldn't show that the 25% of the vegetation would be a problem. And I called on the phone, sent an email or something. I never heard back anything, so I'm assuming that they let the report go. An acre is forty three thousand five sixty square feet. 75% of that would be 31,000.

No house is 31,000 square feet. There's not an acre in the country that has a house that's 31,000 square feet on the 1st Floor. I cannot believe that a professional expert would allow a report to go through that says 75% of the site's going to be paved, and then says there's no problem with the vegetation because it's only going be 25% of the site. So I just want to say experts might not necessarily do the right thing. I'm not criticizing the gentleman. He's an expert. And I don't know if he's even the one that did it. Okay. I'll go let me say one more thing quick. You can have a moment.

Capping the site is safe. There's there's six alternatives besides removal, and they ignored them all. And one of the safest ways to cap it, you can bring in two feet of clean dirt, raise the site up, get a better ocean view. You can cap it and stuff below it. It's safe. That's a totally safe way to do it. And the ultraviolet, you can leave it because ultraviolet rays of the sun deteriorate, if you wanna use the word kill, the adilter that would then say a half inch of the surface. So it doesn't get blown off with the dust because there's grass there anyway, and the top half inch is killed by ultraviolet rays. It's safe to leave it, and cap it is even better. So it's an alternative, better than excavate.

Thank you. And would the applicant like to utilize any of their rebuttal time?

Yes. Thank you, Chair Wardlow and Planning Commissioners. I also want to thank staff. I might have blown past that. I apologize. Thank you for all your work. Thank you, experts, for all your work on this. I also want to note that there are seven neighbor letters in your packet. They include Tom Foley, Laura and Doctor. Mark Pomerantz, Lisa Fell.

Plus, you heard these neighbors today. In fact, most of the surrounding neighbors support getting this cleanup done. Now, as to the very sophisticated CEQA questions from Commissioner Bauke. First, just read class 30. I went back to it when you started talking about it.

Class 30 categorical exemption consists of any minor cleanup actions taken to prevent, minimize, stabilize, mitigate, or eliminate the risk or release or threat of release of a hazardous waste or substance, which are small or medium removal actions costing a million dollars or less. You have evidence that you have an estimate of a million dollars or less. You can actually ask Steve Campbell some more about that estimate, if you'd like. Then you went on and asked about these examples. Which example does it fit in?

And I will say that is an illustrative list. Because it does say examples of such minor cleanup actions include, but are not limited to and this is really common in these categorical exemptions. They provide kind of classes of types of projects that were meant to be found exempt. And some of the classes include excavation this is number five excavation and or off-site disposal of contaminated soils. Yes, it goes on to say, or sludges in regulated units.

But again, this is just an illustrative example, and we fit squarely in. Then there were great questions about the exceptions to the exemptions in one, five, 300.2, and a discussion of unusual circumstances. And I will pause it, it is not an unusual circumstance. You just heard lots of examples of cleanups near residential sites, and you, there are many examples of cleanups of historic agrochemicals next to active ag. That happens, happens all over.

In fact, I think one of the commenters talked about a cleanup on her ranch of an agrochemical, or I assumed, or maybe it was some other chemical. But the point is, it's not unusual to do a cleanup like this with the very clear protective measures that are going to be put in place in a circumstance like this, in a property like this. Now, as to piece milling, so yes, our clients are contemplating a housing project which includes a subdivision. But we don't have a piece milling problem here because this cleanup has independent utility. It is good for the neighborhood.

Even if that's the only thing that these guys do, cleaning up this neighborhood, it is a good thing. So it is okay to analyze it separately under the case law, especially because here we don't foreclose any future analysis or mitigation or any other things. That will all come later. When those later projects come, we will do whatever proper mitigation and analysis is required under CEQA for those projects. Regarding the off-site testing issue, as you heard from EHS, other properties have an agricultural past here.

We can't saddle this owner with testing the entire neighborhood. And in fact, there's no evidence that this owner's prior it wasn't this owner's operation, but the prior operation on this property caused any of that contamination. In fact, it's my understanding that that farm, one, I don't think it's actually certified organic, but I also don't know that they've actually tested their own soils. There is a historic agricultural operation there. So testing can occur.

The neighbors can do it. They can do it on their own properties. But as you heard from the experts that they you know, it can't be put on this applicant to then go and sample the entire neighborhood. So, finally, I just ask you all I know it's tough. Neighborhood disputes are tough. You know, there's a lot of concerns that have been raised. I know you have a tough decision, but we really hope that you defer to your experts, you defer to city staff's recommendation to allow this important remediation project to proceed. And my team and I are here if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you to both the applicant and the appellant for their rebuttals. With that, we will move to deliberations. Who of my fellow commissioners would like to make any comments? Or if or we can yeah. Does anyone want to deliberate? Vice Chair Boss. Sure.

Thank you, Chair. I want to acknowledge this is a really challenging subject, but I don't think I heard anybody here today say that they'd like for the toxic soil to remain as it is right now. I think everybody wants it remediated. But I think I've heard the only request is really to minimize the neighborhood impacts, specifically by adjusting the threshold of stopping or pausing work. And the applicants and the experts have accommodated a number of requests that go above and beyond the standard requirements. And I trust the experts and their recommended processes. So, I'll support staff's recommendation to deny the appeal.

Thank you, Vice Chair Boss. Commissioner DeLucio.

My seat just fell down. That's okay. So, I actually actually, I do want to acknowledge everybody that did come out today, you know, the neighborhood concerns. I would be concerned if I lived in that neighborhood, too. But I have but looking at all the evidence and everything before us, I think we have the experts here. And I feel like we've really deliberated on this numerous times. And, we, and this has been going on for so many years. And, I know there's, fortunately, there's been updates to the RAP. So, that's a good thing. And also, I think, I believe it's meeting all the state and the local requirements.

And I'm glad that we put the conditions in here, the additional conditions. And I know it became before, a test before it came before us. And I did watch your hearing that day. And you really took a lot of time with it and a lot of caring with it. And you added some conditions. So, I do appreciate that. And I do appreciate our staff here who took it you took this over, didn't you? Which I appreciate all you've done on this. And, also, I've been on this commission three years now. And, when I was first on this commission, we had something come before us, a major, major project.

And, I won't name the project. I don't want go into that again. But, we didn't have all the documentation in front of us at that time, all the studies. This time we had all the studies in front of us. We had like 500 pages or something of information.

And, I didn't want to acknowledge the appellant for all the effort that he put into going as far as putting a full blown EIR together. So, did want to acknowledge that. I do think that what came out of that was we did add some additional conditions that he had called out. So, at this point, think we can deny the appeal and uphold the hearing officer's determination to approve the project when it comes to that.

Mary Thank you, Commissioner DeLucia. Commissioner Balkhy.

Honestly, I'm very torn. I think you probably got that. It it is definitely a balancing act here in protecting the neighborhood, both short term and long term. So I I air on removal, but I'm concerned that we aren't quite there as to some of the issues. Number one, runoff.

Like, I just don't think we're there as far as protecting the public from potential runoff from this site. I'm also concerned, and you heard my commentary and questions regarding monitoring the effects of this project on our food supply with the organic farm that's next door. I'm willing to support the denial

of

the appeal if we add some conditions regarding water collection and runoff and monitoring at the organic farm from any exceedance that might happen during the remediation. Those are my comments.

Thank you, Commissioner Balkhy. Before I go into mine, I just want to check. So, based on Commissioner Balkhy's feedback, we able to add any conditions to address some of his concerns on water runoff? Or I feel like the wonderful city attorney already said no.

Chair Wardlow, we can't require monitoring on off-site of the project site. The farm can voluntarily do their own monitoring should they choose to, but it's not something we can impose on the applicant here. With regards to the water runoff, I'm not the expert, so I don't know what kind of condition you'd place on that.

Is the water runoff aspect, is that something that we can condition that staff would be supportive of? What is your feedback on that?

Chair Wardlow, I believe the erosion and sediment control plan still needs to be reviewed by the Building and Safety Division when they do submit for their grading permit, and that's following the planning approvals. And I believe what Ms. Markey was speaking to about the more detailed erosion control plan for sites that exceed one acre, that would be developed when they submit for their building permit because that's administered by the city's building and safety division and not the city's creeks division is my understanding of that. But, miss Markey can clarify.

Yeah. Sorry. Just to clarify, the general construction permit would actually be an application directly to the water board. And so, it would be a condition of approval of the building permit if their site is over an acre that they have that permit in place.

So, are we able to say that that must be a part of this year?

That they have to get a general construction permit? Yeah. That would be a triggered requirement if the project site is over an acre of grading, and I don't know if we want that's the water board's requirement, if there's over an acre of grading. And so I don't wanna speak to whether that is a 100 true

at this point. Through the chair. To think creatively of how to get at that. I do think you can add a condition of approval to address your concerns given the findings that are before you. How I would craft that in terms of watering, I would say if a, construction permit through the water board is not required, a runoff, like similar, using the same kind of language of a water treatment plan needs to be submitted to the city for review, something like that, that we would take it on.

So we can't invoke their jurisdiction if they don't have jurisdiction. But if the request is, if they don't have jurisdiction, we want to do something similar, and we want to have that looked at by the city, then I think we can take that on. So, that's where I'm trying to think of how we could word that. But I do think you could state something like that in the conditions, if that helps. Very helpful.

Okay. Well, thank you again to everyone that has joined us today and all of the work that has gone into this. I know that the community has weighed in many times on this, and this is obviously something near and dear to everyone's heart that we get this right. So, I appreciate everyone's efforts, and thank you to staff and our county experts that are here with us today. We really appreciate everyone's insights. I am going to be supportive of staff's recommendation with the slight change that Commissioner Balkhy recommended. So, with that, can we get a motion? That would be you.

You want to make a motion? I have

to get void my computer up. Can we have the conditions of approval?

I have it. I'm happy to Vice Chair Vossil. I'll move that the Planning Commission deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the staff hearing officer, thereby approving the coastal development permit and affirming the CEQA determination, making the findings in section 11 and subject to the conditions of approval in the staff hearing officer resolution in Exhibit C, with the addition of the language that Commissioner Bauke will help me out with.

And then, we'll need some help here, because basically what I'm looking for is a condition that deals with the runoff of water from the remediation grading portion. I really don't care about anything beyond that, because that's where runoff of these chemicals, it's a collection of it and disposal of it at its appropriate facility. Because if you test it and find out that it's contaminated with these toxins at actual levels, it needs to go to particular off-site locations. So, just that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking for that.

I think Mr. Arsenyega is working on crafting some language that addresses this based on your previous comments? Or do we want to rework this?

If we could we could take a break, maybe, that would help us craft a condition, if that's possible, because I think it would be a coordinated effort.

Thank you. Great. We'll take a five minute break. Thank you all. If everybody could take their seats.

What? I don't think we're I don't think we're there yet.

I don't think I don't think we're there yet.

If everybody could please take their seats, we want to get started. Thank you so much for allowing us a little bit longer than the five minute break we had discussed. All right. So, we will get started. I will turn it over to Ms. Arsenyega to provide an updated motion, language for the motion.

Draft. So, for your consideration

For consideration.

And open to edits. Just to be clear, no one has quite vetted this. Although lots of people helped with input. So the proposed language might read site runoff prior to building permit issuance, the city will review erosion sediment control plans to ensure runoff from the contaminated portion of the site does not leave the site. Additionally, all erosion control and storm water best management practices must be adhered to as required by the building and safety division and state water resources board as applicable. Does that address the

I just want to clarify, when you say building permit, the city of Santa Barbara, grading permits are considered building permits. Just want to

That is correct here. But I can add including grading permit.

Vice Chair Boss, who made the motion. Do you

accept that Yes.

Can we get a second?

I'll second it.

Roll call. Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I'll begin with Commissioner Balki.

Doctor. Yes.

Doctor. Commissioner DeLuccio.

Doctor. Yes.

Vice Chair Boss. Doctor. Yes. And Chair Wardlow. Doctor. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you all very much. We will now move on to item 3B, appeal item for 3139 Seacliff, the appeal of the single family design board action. We have Carly Earnest still here with us today to provide another staff presentation. And we're going to give everybody a minute just to get re situated.

Miss Carmen, can you just test?

Still something.

Okay. Chair Wardlow, if if we're ready, I'll go ahead and get started. Wonderful. Thank you. You, commissioners.

Again, I'm Carly Earnest, associate planner with the city of Santa Barbara's planning division, and we'll be presenting the appeal of the designer view denial of this project. The project was denied by the single family design board, and we are hearing the appeal of that denial today. With me is the design review supervisor, Ted Hamilton Roll, who will give comments on behalf of vice chair, Don Cherry, following the staff presentation. The purpose of today's hearing is to hear the appeal of Linda Blackburn, the agent for the owners of the single family design board's denial of project design approval and final approval on 10/20/2025 for 3139 Seacliff. We'll keep this more brief than the last item and quickly overview that the project site is an approximately three acre lot located in the Campanile neighborhood of the city of Santa Barbara.

It's the property highlighted in blue on the vicinity map and on the left. It is still developed excuse me. Developed with a single unit residence in the southwest corner of the property and surrounded primarily with other single unit residential developments. You can see the existing residence in the right hand corner of the aerial photo. And, again, for a quick recap of the project, it proposes soil remediation by excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil that was a result of the former nursery that operated on the site for fifty years.

And, again, the remedial action plan showing the areas of excavations circled in green. The excavations would be backfilled with clean soil from the site, and here's the landscape plan showing the replacement trees and tree protection measures. The site would also be hydroseeded with a native erosion control mix following the grading activities, and there's no changes to the existing residents. Apart from the land use approvals that were made by the staff hearing officer and upheld by the planning commission today, the project also required design review approval by the single family design board. This is because of a requirement of the Santa Barbara municipal code, which specifies the projects that require review and approval by the SFTP, including when grading outside the footprint of the main building footprint is more than 250 cubic yards on a lot that is not in the Hillside Design District, and applications for grading permits that propose grading on lots located in with located within one family residence zones developed with a single unit residence.

Because the project would propose grading that exceeds 250 cubic yards and requires a grading permit, it was referred to the SFDB for review and approval. The intent behind these design review triggers is to address potential visual impacts associated with significant grading. As an example, we can think of a hillside development project. Review by the single family design board would ensure that the proposed structures and any grading will maintain a scale and form that blends with the hillside and grading would not significantly modify the natural site the natural topography of the site. And these are examples pulled from the single family residence design guidelines showing a home in the Alta Vista neighborhood that is set into the hillside to create a low profile and reduce overall apparent height.

However, for the proposed project we are reviewing today, the visual impacts of grading to complete the soil remediation are anticipated to be minimal. This is because the project proposes to fill excavated areas with other clean soil from the site, and the project site is also not located in the Hillside Design District with an average slope of only 4%. From this aerial image, I hope you can tell it has a it's relatively flat. If a project is referred to the single family design board pursuant to the Santa Barbara municipal code section twenty two six nine zero two zero, the SFTP must make each of the neighborhood preservation findings in order to approve a project. These include findings related to consistency in appearance, neighborhood compatibility, quality architecture and materials, protection of trees, protection of health, safety, and welfare, compliance with good neighbor guidelines, and public views.

In addition to the neighborhood preservation findings, the following findings are required for grading permits reviewed by the SFTP. Prior to both hearings, staff had prepared a memo to the SFTB to assist the board in making these findings, recognizing that they can be challenging because they extend beyond a design review board's purview. In support of these findings, there was a biological resources assessment in erosion and settlement control plan prepared for this project that did demonstrate these findings could be made. And this is because the project, for finding one, the project would not significantly increase siltation in or decrease the water quality of streams, drainages, or water storage facilities. And for finding two, the grading will not cause a loss of southern woodland habitat.

The project was reviewed by the SFTP on two occasions. The first being for concept review, which is intended for the board to provide conceptual comments for consideration by the decision maker. In this case, it was the staff hearing officer, the decision maker of the land use approvals. At the concept review hearing on 03/10/2025, the board found the removal of the contaminated soil to have an aesthetically negligible impact and continue the project to the staff hearing officer. Following the staff hearing officer hearing for approval of the CDP and CEQA determination, the project returned to the single family design board for project design approval and final approval on 10/20/2025.

The SFTB was unable to make one of the neighborhood preservation findings needed to grant approval and therefore denied the project. This neighborhood preservation finding was finding e that the public health, safety, and welfare are appropriately protected and preserved. And staff will further explain SFTB's justification for denial in response to the appeal issues. And on to the appeal issues, There were two main issues in the appeal letter filed by Linda Blackburn, the agent for the owners. These included that the SFDB misunderstood their role in the review process in their jurisdiction and that they ignored the experts' other agency analysis and evidence in the record.

In response to the appeal issues, staff would like to provide some background on the establishment of the SFTP and neighborhood preservation findings. The SFTB was established in 2007 following the neighborhood preservation ordinance and single family design guidelines update process that began in 2004. The objective of the SFTB is to ensure that single unit residential projects are compatible with the surrounding neighborhood in size and design. The inclusion of a finding related to health, safety, and welfare in the neighborhood preservation ordinance stems from a 1954 supreme court ruling that recognized the regulation of aesthetics conserve the general welfare of a community. In this case, however, because of the project involves grading to remove contaminated soil and does not include new structural development.

Given the nature of this and the scope of work, the single family design board interpreted this finding to go beyond aesthetic considerations and to be outside of the board's expertise and purview as a design review body. Staff believes the finding related to health and safety can fall within SFGB's purview as a design review body because the regulation of aesthetics can protect the general welfare of our community. When reviewing projects for neighborhood compatibility and architectural design, the SFTB is ensuring the public health, safety, and welfare of the community are appropriately protected and preserved. Staff believes that this finding can be made because with regards to aesthetics, SFTP found the project to found the project would have an aesthetically negligible impact. And if the finding is interpreted to go beyond aesthetic considerations, the project has undergone thorough review by agencies with regulatory authority as we've seen today in the last item, and there are conditions of approval related to protecting public health and safety.

Moving on to staff's recommendation, because the finding e of the neighborhood preservation findings can be made as well as the other findings outlined on page six of your staff report, It is staff's recommendation to uphold the appeal and overturn the decision of the SFTB, thereby granting project design approval and final approval and making the findings starting on page six of your packet. In conclusion, the Planning Commission's decision today is on the SFDB appeal is final and cannot be appealed to city council. And another difference from the staff hearing officer appeal, this is not conducted de novo, and there is a limit on the new evidence that may be presented. However, at this time, there has been no new evidence presented other than information directly to address the appeal issues and information that was already presented to the SFTB. However, if new evidence is presented, the Planning Commission will have to vote that in on accepting that into the record.

That concludes my presentation, and I'll turn it over to mister Hamilton Roll.

Great. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair Wardlow and chair Wardlow and commissioners. I'm Ted Hamilton Roll, acting design review supervisor, here on behalf of the single family design board and vice chair, Don Sherry, whose was included as part of your packet. As vice chair Sherry explains in the letter, the SFDB denied this project only because they did not feel they possessed the expertise to make the health, safety, and welfare finding that they're required to make as part of their neighborhood preservation findings. Staff acknowledged the SFDB's concern at the hearing and offered to coordinate with APCD and EHS staff to be present at a continued hearing on the matter. However, the SFDB chose to deny the project based on the fact that they felt they just could not make all of the findings.

And as miss Ernest stated, Stack recommends overturning the SFDB's denial of the project because on aesthetic merits alone, the project has a negligible impact and clearly does not present any neighborhood compatibility issues in terms of the aesthetic impacts of the grading or vegetation removal. As stated, we think all the neighborhood preservation findings can be made as applied to the project's aesthetic merits. And I'll be here for questions about the SFDB's purview and perspective. Thank you.

Thank you. Excuse me. We will now hear from the applicant, who in this case is the appellant. Please state your full name and relationship to the project. You will have fifteen minutes to present.

TeriAnn Chair Wardlow, I'd just like to add also that we're incorporating by reference all the information that was provided at the Okay. 3A hearing.

Great. Yes. Ms. Chairman, would you please start the timer?

Ms. Yes. Chair Wardlow, commissioners, it's very strange. Usually I'm leaving the room and then not on the next item. But again, these were dueling appeals. So I'm not going to repeat everything since everything has been incorporated into the record. I will just say, unfortunately, I think SFDB was a little confused about its purview. There is a lot of information here. Luckily, we've really unpacked that pretty thoroughly over the last is it hours? I guess.

Over the last hours. So, let it just be said that I think that we would like you to take staff's recommendation, overturn SFDB's decision, grant project design and final approval, and allow this project to move forward and allow for implementation of the wrap. And with that, I'll reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal. Thanks.

All right. Thank you very much. That now takes us to public comment. Is there any members of the public that would like to make comment on this specific item?

Thank you, Chair Ward, though. At this time, I do have a list of public comment speaker slips. The first on the list is Gil Barry, whose time is pooled with Timothy Rogers. In order for that time to be valid, Timothy Rogers needs to be present in the room. Are you present? Perfect. Okay. So Gil, you'll have four minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

The required finding number five that I didn't see staff put up on the screen, probably on purpose. It says that you may not approve this project unless you can make the finding that the project will not cause health impacts to the neighbors. I wish you'd put that number five on the screen so you can see it for yourself. In my opinion, you simply can't make that required finding because many of us neighbors have presented you with testimony and facts that this project not might, but will cause significant adverse health impacts to the neighbors. So even if you wanted to approve the project, if you take the findings seriously, it says health, safety, welfare are appropriately protected.

Well, if the neighbors get sick, then our health is not being protected. And having a meter read the dust doesn't stop the dust from rising and the wind blowing. I've lived there forty five years. The prevailing wind comes from the ocean every single day. It's always windy where I live, and it always blows from the ocean, which is from the site right to my house.

And whenever dust is raised, which it is, the wind's going to blow it to the neighbors, and we're going get sick. So it's a fact that you can't make that finding. It says our health is being, you know, protected. When it's not, this cancer causing death is going to be raised. I mean, there's no other way around it.

Now, there is an alternative to denying the project, and that would be an alternative solution of capping. They can leave it in place, import two feet of clean soil, and it's buried forever, and it's not going to get in the wind or hurt anyone, then they can build their homes on it. And it wouldn't cost any more money. They'd have a higher elevation, a better ocean view, and it's an allowed alternative. The county environmental health had six alternatives, and they didn't even tell you about them.

The applicant picked one, and they just didn't even tell you about the others. And capping in place is an alternative. And it's an environmentally superior alternative, and it solves a neighborhood problem. And then lastly, please put in place that they have to stop in water when the level reaches 25, not 50. That's for all the toxic soil they have to remove.

So the idea is if you require them, as a conditional approval, to stop and water whenever it exceeds 25, that will cut the toxic dust in half. If you let them go to 50, what happens is if they read only every fifteen minutes, half an hour, dust level gets 100, 150, 200, two fifty. They read it, and it reads 200, so they stop in water. And then it gets down to, say, 50. And then they start in again. Then it gets 75, eighty, ninety, one hundred, 200. Then they read it. Oh, it's 200. They stop, and they water. So the idea is, if they have to stop at 50, that doesn't mean the level's 50.

It means that that's where they stopped. The level's going go up to 200, 300, and then they stop, so the average might be 100. And I did calculations that showed anything over 50 is going to give us cancer and getting sick. The only way we're going to keep not sick is to keep it 150. The only way to keep the average under 50 is to stop and water at 25, and that means the average might likely be 50.

So please put in a conditional approval that they have to stop and water at 25, not 50, and that every 15 like they agreed to. And also, LA uses 25 and Oxnard and Camarillo. They used to use like thirty minutes and they changed it to an hour because people complaining about how hard it was to deal with. But anyway, 20 five is the appropriate number.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, I'll have Eve Leeds, who is Carol Shaw has requested to pull her time. So, Eve, you would have four minutes if Carol Shaw is still present. Okay. Perfect.

The neighbors that live on Braemar do not all think that this should be done at all. The soil is intact. It's not really spreading out until it starts getting dug up. It's been misrepresented that we all want it done. But I understand that it's probably gonna get done, and I want it to be done right. And once the soil is disturbed, the toxic dust becomes airborne and it settles onto our homes and our pools, our gardens and our houses. Not just during this excavation period, permanently. Some people are talking about you know like the farm we could test beforehand on the surface of the dirt. We could just take this much. We don't have to dig two feet down.

If we test beforehand and there's going to be a level of dialdron let's say, then I understand if it had dialdron to start with what can you say? But if there's no dialdron and then you later on test and there's dialdron on the surface that means we're all getting it all over our yards forever. I want to make sure that I protect there's eight kids that live within two houses of this site, four of which are within a stone's throw away from where the bulldozers are gonna inevitably be tossing dust. They're the most vulnerable and they will not know when they are being exposed. And if they get sick, it's not just cancer.

I'm talking about you know neurological diseases, Parkinson's for older people, infertility, things that happen even during the birth. People have been exposed during the pregnancy. So I want it done right and I'm asking that the grading be professionally monitored like it is done by special meters that are going to be I don't know the details of that. That's not my purview. But I do want it to be done so there's more than one handheld meter that's being held by their geologist walking around.

That's kind of the impression I've gotten. It would be great if there were four meters there with real time dust measurements. They're high-tech. They immediately stop the work if the limits are exceeded. A promise to do it right by the owners is not enough for me to feel comfortable that they're really going to be taking care of all the people that are close by to this property.

A lot of the people who are supporting this property don't live right there. They live farther away and they don't have to worry about all this overflow. But when the soil is you know containing this persistent toxic chemical, I truly feel that this has to be done super conscientiously and I'm hoping that this Planning Commission will take that to heart. I feel at a minimum the excavation needs to require independently managed meters. I feel that there should be third party non invested people who are going to look

out for

us. And I'm a concern too that if we call these agencies and say we see some dust that it gets responded to at a time that's gonna be valuable for us. If it's gonna take five hours to somebody to come out and shut down this operation, that's not going to be okay. We're all going to have been exposed to something. So I'm just asking that the city, that the Planning Commission and the city really looks after its citizens.

I love the idea of actually testing this water before it's going down into the culvert that goes into the lagoon. I I love his idea of being able to actually make sure that there's not toxins going down because it might not be a creek, but it's a culvert and it goes straight down underneath underneath Cliff Drive and ends up in the lagoon. So please do your best to protect us otherwise I'm gonna feel like I have to sell my house and move because I'm gonna be so scared to be there and my granddaughter lives with us and I'm I can tell, I'm pretty terrified about this toxin. And if you research dialdrin, you'll know why I'm terrified. The experts are not experts in dialdrin. They're experts in their field. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you. Next, we'll have Steve Luik, followed by Natasha Todorovic. Steve is Steve still present? It does not look like it. I'll go to Natasha Todorovic, followed by Craig Leeds.

So I was at the single family design board and listened to their deliberations. They were not confused. They were taking the matter very seriously. They really cared about the decision and they could see very clearly that these toxins, that these chemicals were going to create health effects. So they voted properly.

Question that you might ask is are they going to be setting up next to this site as the dirt is being moved? Are they going to be living on it during the time that the dirt is going to be moved? Because living there after it's been cleaned up is one thing. Setting up while the dirt's being moved, that would give me a little bit more confidence. And we we kept hearing trust the process.

We saw that the process was flawed. It was problematic, it was partial, it had half pieces, and some important pieces were being skipped. Your decision here is going to impact not only the families that live there currently, but what's going to happen to the families in the future and the children that are going to have to take care of the parents who are impacted by these chemicals. And discretion, that means people can take shortcuts. So sometimes we have to urge people to live up to, doing the right thing.

And I hope that you're able to make a decision that does that today. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up will be Craig Leeds. Followed by Lori Rafferty.

At Tuesday's site visit, I spoke to Steve Campbell, the developer's geologist, and I asked him, what to do? What do I do when I smell dust? He said, well, call APCD to call Eric Kent, this. Eric Kent, supervisor. So we tried calling Eric Kent and got voice mail. But I called him back later and actually talked to him, and I said, well, what do I do when I Steve said to call you, and he said, no, don't call me. Call the hotline. And he said, well, but the hotline doesn't answer the phone. It just takes a message, and hopefully within about three hours, somebody will call you back. But only hopefully, only if they're not busy.

So what happens if somebody calls me back in three hours and they talk to me and then they have to talk to somebody at the site and you know, maybe it's four hours later, maybe it's, you know, maybe they have trouble getting them, maybe they don't. It might take, you know, it might take five hours, it might take days. What good is it if there's, you know, dust in the air that I'm complaining about then? It's not gonna help. And, you know, the Dieldrin is serious.

I asked him about the Dieldrin and the dust, and he said he'd never even heard of Dieldrin, the guy from APCD, Steve Eric Kett. And that, you know, that scared me even more. The project must be required to conduct monitoring in such a way that the agreements cannot be ignored. Monitoring should be administered by a disinterested professional party and occur every fifteen minutes for all of it and record it automatically so no fudging or forgetting can occur. Work must be stopped immediately if particulate levels exceed micrograms per cubic meter above background levels throughout all of the excavation of all the dirt that they're going to remove, not just that tiny, tiny little section in the middle, but all five, especially all five sections.

And thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, we'll have Laurie Rafferty followed by Christina Sklar. Is Laurie Rafferty still present? Is Christina Sklar present?

Okay. With that, I don't have any more speaker slips for in person public comment. If anyone else would like to speak, you can approach the podium at this time. Otherwise, I will move on to virtual participation. But I'm not seeing any movement towards the podium. So if anyone online would like to speak under this item, you can raise your hand at this time. But I'm not seeing any raised hands. And for written correspondence, I'll just acknowledge that all written correspondence regarding the appeals at this address were consolidated under item 3A. So, I won't be repeating the submissions. And I'll give it back to you.

Female Thank you, and thank you for everyone for their comments. We will now move on to questions from my fellow commissioners. Who would like to go first? Vice Chair Boss. Vice Chair

you, Chair. I have one question for staff. I watched the SFDB hearing, and they had asked for the neighborhood preservation finding addressing public health to be removed as they aren't comfortable or and they don't feel qualified making that in the future. So, not for this case, but in the future, will that be removed?

Thank you, Vice Chair Boss. The Finding E for Health, Safety, and Welfare, for years, the Single Family Design Board has expressed concerns regarding this finding. And in fact, this is a finding that's proposed to be eliminated as part of the single family streamlining process improvements. As their purview is related to aesthetics and not evaluating technical environmental documents in this particular way. This is a finding that they feel they don't have the expertise to make.

Great. Thank you for confirming.

Thank you, Vice Chair Boss. Commissioner DeLucia. So, we're doing

the streamlining right now with the single family guidelines. Are we going to be is that part of the evaluation, possibly taking that out?

Commissioner Deluccio, yes, it is.

And what about I know grading goes to design review board, but they're more used to seeing, I would imagine, design and buildings and stuff, correct? Is this an exception where they're just seeing not only grading, something major in

terms of grading? The single family design board has, I think, always looked at grading. Their purview with regard to grading is really when there is significant site grading associated with a house being built.

Exactly. Is there any way that we need to relook that also in the ordinance? Or does that not come up before this time?

The grading finding is proposed to remain as one of the required findings. It's just being edited slightly.

No, I understand that. But since we had this situation today, has this ever come up before where there's been something as major as this without looking at a design for a building?

Thanks for the clarification. This basically occurs point 01% of the time, where there's a significant concern about a single family project with regards to, you know, a specific health impact like contaminated soil. This is a very infrequent type of thing.

Okay. So, think they did the right thing by not feeling comfortable to address it and to bump it up to the planning commission. So, thank you for that clarification.

Thank you. Commissioner Bahke, do have anything, or can I jump in?

You can

go. Okay. First, just for the record, I think you started off by saying this, but the SFDB, they denied this purely on a procedural thing because they did not feel comfortable making this recommendation, not because that they were denying it based on the facts in front of them. Is that staff's position on why this is here before us

today? Chair Wardlow, I would hesitate to speak as a board member. I'm not a board member, and we don't have a board member here today, unfortunately. However, I was at the hearing, and I do recall that the board listened to the concerns of the neighbors and recognized that there was there are questions about the health and or the potential health impacts of this project, and therefore, did not feel comfortable making the specific finding regarding health, safety, and welfare for this project.

Okay. Thank you. I do just want to speak to or ask a question regarding one of the public commenters that was raised in terms of the timing of the response. And I apologize, maybe I should have brought this up in the last hearing. But I do want to understand what is the maximum amount of time that could lapse until someone responds to public complaints about dust and things like that? Because I do think that's an important, you know, if this could be that somebody calls in that there's dust and they don't get a response for a significant amount of time, I would hope that there's some type of like max amount of time that could lapse until somebody addresses this.

Yeah. Chair Wardlow, David Harris with the Air Pollution Control District. So it's our internal policy to the first thing we do when we get a complaint is to find out if the the thing that the complainant is complaining about is is actively occurring. If it is actively occurring, then it's our goal to respond within one hour. If it's not actively occurring, then it's our goal to respond within twenty four hours. So that's very important to know whether or not, you know, if it's dust, is the dust happening right now? If it's an odor, can you smell it right now? That kind of thing. So, yeah, it's always our goal to respond within one hour if it is actively occurring. You know, that's not something we can do every single time.

It's, you know, very hard to do a 100% all the time. So, you know, I think we hit something like 99% or something like that on our on our goal, on a regular basis. So I can't say it will always with absolute 100% certainty be within an hour, but that is definitely our goal. And we're we're good about meeting our goal.

And the like, to ensure that there's no confusion for the public, like, the number that any member of the public can call, that will be distributed to everybody, and it will be a number that is receiving that kind of one hour turnaround at the hotline or I just if there's confusion, you know, so far around who they call, I just wanna make sure that's really clear for people.

Yeah. Good question. So we have a hotline number. It's a complaint line number that directly, it actually takes the the message and by, computer system immediately turns it into text and distribute it to distributes it to our entire compliance team so that you can get, you know, maximum response, not just one person taking the message. And we also have a complaint, an online form that, somebody can fill out as well.

So both of those are valid ways to submit a complaint, and, we don't have any requirements in our permits that they be you know, that that number, that that, email address be distributed to neighbors, but that certainly seems like something that could be done. It's it's prominently displayed on our website. So if anybody goes on our website, ourair.org, the complaint section is very visible, and, and easy to find.

Thank you for that. As part of our kind of neighborhood notification aspect, this I assume all of this information will be provided to the neighbors.

Is that correct? Chair Wardlow, one of the conditions of the coastal development permit was having that, construction sign posted. The number on there would be someone from the project team. I don't think there's a condition of the land use approval that also requires APCD's contact information to be distributed.

If APCD is the group, if they're the ones that they're supposed to get in touch with to shut something down quickly, shouldn't it be included as part of the contact information?

We can include that as a condition of approval. I believe. Okay. Is that okay? Chair

Wardlow, we don't have conditions of approval That's what

I thought.

For design projects. Okay.

Well, we should have brought this up earlier. So, how can we ensure that this information is just provided in a easy format for the public?

Doctor. Chair Wardlow, one consideration would be to ask the applicant if they're amenable to state for the record that they understand that condition of approval to include APCD, as well as the contractor on-site.

Perfect. Is that Okay. Well, we appreciate that. Again, I do really feel that there is a shared priority here to ensure that everybody wants to make sure this is done correctly. And I think this commission, city staff, county staff, the applicant, the community, we all share that goal. And so, we are doing what we can to ensure that you all have the information you need if something were to arise. And so, I appreciate everybody working collectively on this. Do I have other questions from the Commission? Commissioner Balkhy.

This is just a question to the staff. I mean, I'm just is there anything else that, from a condition standpoint that we could do to minimize the impact of this project? I think we pretty much based on the expert testimony, we pretty much honed in on those. I'm trying to understand what else is out here other than that we because I can make that finding based upon the actions that we had just taken. I can understand the h the the single family design board not being able to it because they didn't have that information.

They were that's not there. And they basically pundit this because that's sort of you know, they're not used to that that discussion. We had the discussion. We had a 500 some pages of stuff to read too. So I'm just trying to understand. Is there something I'm hearing from the public some it's like there is there something else that we missed here that should have been considered?

Chair Wardlow, Commissioner Bauke, one of the reasons I incorporated the record from the previous hearing was to basically incorporate what we discussed there and generally the that we were supportive with the conditions that particularly the extra condition that was applied. And so, that will carry through this approval. But because this is a design board body, they don't have conditions.

Right. That's what I under I understood this. The public, it looks like some kind of bureaucratic thing we're dealing with here. So, just which is somewhat is. See, because they just don't have the ability to condition like we do. And their purview, at least as they understand it, is limited to sort of aesthetic issues. Is it my okay. Alright. The head nod is appropriate.

Chair Balkhy through I mean, Commissioner Balkhy through the chair. I I would agree. Just to reiterate that point. Yeah. The design review does not have conditions. They don't have the benefit of that information. And so their findings, given the scope felt like it didn't have that basis since you're and they felt that the planning commission would have that information since you are review authority on both. So I think that's what's different here. Again, it's the nuance of that finding that it takes on a different meaning, considering the scope of work than a typical building would. But I think that's the difference that you're seeing in your review versus theirs.

Any other comments or questions? Sorry. Okay. We will now move on to the rebuttal period if, the applicant slash appellant would like to give any final comments. Oh, and, miss Carmen, can

you please remind us how much time is remaining? The appellant has fourteen minutes and two seconds left. I will put it on the screen right now.

Chair Wardlaw and Commissioners, I will not take fourteen minutes. I just want to touch a couple of quick things. First, thank you so much for your time and consideration on this. So,

we have

an SFDB hat on, design review hat, since this is the purview of the appeal that's our appeal over that denial. And I apologize if I said confused. Maybe I should have said struggled with the language in that finding, that SFDB did struggle with the public health and safety finding. Because it really isn't clear that it only relates to aesthetics. And it's pretty broad language when you just look at it.

So, I'm glad it's in your hands now. You all are more than capable to make a health and safety finding on behalf of SFDB. I do have a little map. This actually shows the green in the center with the star is the property site. I'm gonna hold it up back here too. This actually shows the appellant is here. All of these neighbors have been in support, or are in support. So there are many neighbors that are right next to this property that are supporting this. This is the farm property here, and this is appellant. But other than that, we have many neighbors all around us, including, you know, who's either put in written or other comments supporting the project.

So, just wanted to end on that, and we're here if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now open it up for deliberations and comments from the commission. Who would like to go first? Vice Chair Boss.

Vice Two comments. Thank you, Chair. First, in watching the meeting, I recall that staff had offered conditions of approval to make SFDB, the board members, more comfortable, and I wanted to thank you for that. It felt like you really tried to work with the board to make them more comfortable in making the findings, understanding that they did not feel comfortable. And wanted to acknowledge Vice Chair Sherry's letter and explanation and specifically that they made the they denied the project because they should not be asked to confirm the safety of the potentially contaminated soil removal. So, that was made very clear in the meeting and also in the letter that was in our materials. So, thank you for including both of those.

Other comments? Commissioner Deluccio.

I'm actually ready to move this item also. Again, we went through this before, and I'm satisfied that everything's in place. And I want to thank you, Carrie. You've done a great job. Carrie, right? Did I get your name right? Carly. Carly. And, Ted, thank you too for working with the review board and then bringing this matter before us today. So, I think can make the neighborhood preservation finding for health, safety and welfare and the grading.

And we can accept the appeal and uphold the appeal and the versus the decision of the single family to be moved. Something like that, right? We can overturn that.

All right. Any other comments from my fellow commissioners? Okay. Well, I really appreciate everyone's time and efforts on this. I too will be supporting staff's recommendation.

Again, I understand that this is a very complicated and personal discussion, and I really appreciate everyone's time and efforts on this. I am confident based on all the work that staff and county staff has done on this project that we are pursuing a plan for remediation that will yield the best results for this community. And I appreciate the applicants efforts to really go, you know, a step beyond and work with the community to ensure that folks are getting a timely response if anything comes up. I think that just being really engaged on this is really important because you know, this is a topic where I think there's a lot of fear and that fear is valid I think. So I appreciate everyone's collective efforts to really make sure that this is handled in the most appropriate way possible so that community members can feel as comfortable and as heard and that this is as responsive as as possible.

So with that, do we have a motion?

I'll make I'll make a motion if you'd like me to. Okay. So again, the motion is that we're going to uphold the appeal. And we're going to overturn the decision of the Single Family Review Board, correct? And we can make the findings regarding the health, safety, and welfare in the neighborhood preservation findings. And also, I'd like, if possible, I'd like the we're talking about the APCD hotline. Is that what you were talking about before? I'd like that to be reflected. I know we have no conditions, but I would like that to be sometimes our minutes are action steps. I wouldn't like that to be called out specifically in our minutes for the record. So, that's my motion.

Second. Mary Louise, please have roll call. Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I'll begin with Commissioner Deluccio.

Yes.

Commissioner Bauke.

Yes.

Vice Chair Boss.

Yes.

And Chair Wardlow. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you all very much for your time engagement here today. Okay. Do you guys want to take a break or are we just rolling through? I think we should go through. Thoughts? Deva, go through.

I I don't think we have

staff here yet. Okay. Well, we're gonna take a couple minute break while we staff arrives for the next item. Reconvene now at 04:49PM, and we will move on to our last item, a discussion item on short term rental ordinance. Today we have Laura Bradley, project planner, with us to provide a staff presentation.

Ms. Bradley, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, Chair Wardlow. Today is a momentous occasion in that we are here with a beginning stab at a short term rental ordinance. Our goal was to relay direction from city council that we had in August 5 to move forward with the short term rental ordinance and get some feedback from you about specific elements of the ordinance that may be of interest. We wanna get, public input as well today and continue the conversation with the planning commission. Where we've been is that the city council again gave us pretty specific direction in August 5, but this effort has been around for a long time, and it had hearings before the planning commission.

It had hearings before the city council. We've had hearings and discussions with the coastal commission. So, it's been getting formed for a long time. There's an exhibit in your staff report, Exhibit B, that has a very detailed list of all those meetings. And for a variety of reasons, it's just taken a while for us to pull it together to be here on the verge of launching a draft ordinance.

Today is going to be a progress report, by the way. We're not asking for any action. So, it's really just a discussion item from your commission. We wanted to start also with some terminology, which we found helpful at the city council meeting, which is this is all about short term rentals, formerly known as vacation rentals. There's a number of acronyms for them, but it's when you have a home that's rented for less than thirty days for money.

And a home share is a set of that where you have one room rented while the resident is in place in the home for less than thirty days. So, are our two descriptors in the ordinance. A little more background on this. In twenty two to twenty twenty four, the city council considered a framework, including those two elements of short term rentals, non hosted, where the whole house is rented, as well as home shares. They talked about that for several meetings, and then they referred it to the planning commission for feedback.

Also, at about this period, we had the city attorney launch a very successful enforcement program because what was happening in the world is that short term rentals were becoming more popular. Especially after COVID, they became very popular. And, the city wanted to try to enforce, many of these that weren't paying TOT, and that has gone on from the city attorney's office for a long you know, since that time. You know what? I'm gonna stop because I did a bad thing.

I forgot to introduce this wonderful team I'm with. What am I thinking? To my right is Rosie Dyste, our principal planner with, with the long range section in community development. And, we have John we have Brenda Bels, our code expert at community development. And we have John Doymas and Ariel Zamora, who are also on our interdepartmental team and recently joined by Teva Ostringer.

We also have Lindsey Moss, who's assistant finance director, joins our team, and Jessica Grant from transportation, who might be somewhere nearby. I apologize. I should have done that first. Anyway, going back to the history. So in 2022 to '24, the city is struggling with an increase in these uses.

The council's looking at ordinance options. And then, again, it's important to remember that the housing element was adopted in 2023, And this mechanism, the short term rentals, was something that the housing element wanted the city to address. So in this year, after staff was established for this, we started this interdepartmental team. We did a lot of community outreach, which wasn't a big huge open house, but it was multiple meetings and multiple conversations. I think a lot of people in the room today are someone I've spoken to personally.

So everybody's trying to stay up to speed. And then also in '25, we had that August 5 meeting where the city council confirmed the goals of what they want the short term rental ordinance to try to do, to limit it in single and two unit zones, and to consider a license area in the coastal zone, which is what we're going to get into. So for community outreach, as I said, we talked to a lot of groups, stakeholders both for short term rentals and against short term rentals, housing advocates, the board of realtors, Airbnb as well, and many individuals from both sides of the perspective. You probably already know, and you're going to feel it tonight, that it's a controversial topic. So again, touching on this long term housing mandate from the housing element, we've got goal four, policy 4.3, program eighteen nineteen, which tells us we have to preserve long term housing.